James Shraiky
Assistant professor, director of healthcare design initiatives, Arizona State University

Who he is: Shraiky has been busy since founding the Healthcare Design Initiatives department at Arizona State University in 2007. An architect by training, Shraiky created a research-based concentration in healthcare and healing environments for a master’s design program, bringing together various disciplines and curriculums including architecture, design research, public health, and nursing. He led students in a service project to Central Africa, allowing them to see and study firsthand the power of the built environment on healthcare for vulnerable populations. He wrote about the experience and the team’s research in a 2012 article for Healthcare Design, titled “Mapping New Healthcare Infrastructure After Genocide.” A year later, his graduate students worked on the design of a wellness campus and operational model for a poor rural community in Rwanda.

Year in review: Shraiky’s Healing Environments Research Lab continues to engage multidisciplinary students in meaningful work that serves vulnerable populations. The focus in 2013 shifted closer to home, through a partnership with Native American Connections, a nonprofit group providing services to the Native American community around Phoenix. In an interesting sort of prelude, Shraiky and his students traveled to Australia in 2013 to study and address the mental health needs of the Aboriginal people. Those findings are helping to inform the research for the Native American project here in the States.

What’s next: The Native American Connections research continues, as Shraiky and his students study and address how design affects the health and wellness of urban Native Americans in Arizona. In addition, Shraiky is working with the Phoenix Veterans Administration, through a funded grant from architecture firm AECOM, on research into how interior environments affect the treatment of wounded veterans.

THE HCD 10 (Click any winner's name for more information):

  • OwnerDavid Schuller, vice president of medical center expansion and outreach, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center—Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (Columbus, Ohio)
  • ArchitectLaura Poltronieri, principal, Poltronieri Tang & Associates (Swarthmore, Pa.)
  • Association/foundation executiveDouglas Erickson, CEO, Facility Guidelines Institute (Dallas)
  • Interior designerCarolyn BaRoss, design principal, Perkins+Will (New York)
  • ResearcherSheila Bosch, director of research, Gresham, Smith and Partners (Tampa, Fla.)
  • Construction executiveCarlos Gonzalez, project director, Clark/McCarthy, A Joint Venture (Costa Mesa, Calif.)
  • EducatorJames Shraiky, assistant professor, director of healthcare design initiatives, Arizona State University (Tempe, Ariz.)
  • Facility managerMitch Goplen, vice president and director of facility services and construction, Billings Clinic (Billings, Mont.)
  • Rising star: David Ruthven, co-lead and creative director, NXT Health (New York)
  • Firm of the year: Perkins+Will (worldwide)