Founded by AIA California’s Healthcare Facilities Forum Committee in memory of their colleague, the Robert J. Kain Healthcare Design Education Scholarship, known as The Kain Scholarship, strives to encourage and support architecture students interested in pursuing a career in the design and delivery of hospitals and healing environments. With forces that continually shift and improve healthcare delivery, this scholarship opportunity supports the importance of developing the next generation of architects to create the innovative design and delivery needs of tomorrow’s healthcare facilities.

The scholarship recipients were noted for holding tremendously “unique design perspectives that are promising for the future,” by the scholarship jury.

The following bios demonstrate the range of backgrounds and interests among the four recipients. All embody the commitment to healthcare in design that the jury described as emblematic of design students in the state of California submitting work.

Bennett Grisley is a 4th year Bachelor of Architecture student at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. His prior experience as a Search and Rescue Helicopter Crewman in the U.S. Navy motivates him to think deeply about spaces of care and their design.

Maria Echeverria is a student at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, California. She has lived in Los Angeles for 23 years and believes it is time for her to give back to her community. After four years of studying architecture, Maria decided to showcase Health Care Design in her Senior Year Project. She is ready for her design to be used to advocate for social injustices in the Hispanic community. She will design a Micro Hospital for the East Los Angeles community as her senior project. Maria is taking a significant step forward in her design because she wants to learn more about Health Care Design. She is prepared to be a lifelong student of architecture and to design a project.

Monica Shenouda was born in Egypt and came to the United States with her family in 2012. She is a fifth-year architecture student at Cal Poly Pomona, and will obtain her bachelor’s degree in May 2023. Her ambition is to work in healthcare architecture and to be able to design buildings that aid in the healing process of patients. Some of her hobbies include portrait drawing and baking.

Robert Heckey is a 4th year Architecture student attending Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He is honored to be recognized with the 2022 Kain Scholarship and is looking forward to continuing his pursuit of a career in healthcare design.

The 2022 Kain Scholarship jury was composed of: Niloofar Badihi, Assoc. AIA; Jhiah Chang, AIA; and Gary Goldberg, AIA.