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David Fischetti Award

The David Fischetti Award is presented by the Preservation Engineering Technical Committee (PETC) of the Association for Preservation Technology International for an outstanding article that advances the field of conservation engineering. Articles must address technical aspect(s) of the engineering as they relate to historic preservation.

Articles may be project related, or based on research and cover any of the following topics:

  • History of engineering design, methods, or systems (structural, building enclosure, mechanical, electrical, fire protection, vertical transportation, etc.)
  • Application of analytic methods with proper judgement to analyze archaic systems
  • Re-evaluation and comparative analyses of historic analytic methods
  • Assessment of historic materials and systems
  • Integration of modern systems with historic and archaic systems
  • Innovative methods of repair of historic systems
  • Incorporation of engineering judgment and simplified methods

Eligibility
Articles shall be nominated for the award from appropriate, peer-reviewed publications. Nominations may be submitted by the PETC membership, and the authors themselves.

The jury shall determine eligibility of articles based on the following criteria:

  1. Eligible articles must be original works that have been published in a peer-reviewed journal or publication.
  2. Articles in conference proceedings are not eligible, although authors are encouraged to republish their work in a peer-reviewed publication, subject to conformance with the guidelines for previously published content.
  3. Only articles published in the three years preceding the award shall be eligible. *
  4. Only one article per author per year shall be eligible.
  5. The article shall present innovative ideas and serve to advance the practice of preservation engineering to its readers as described above.
  6. The article shall be written clearly and succinctly and shall include drawings and photographs where they are helpful in communicating ideas.
  7. The methodologies or solutions described in the article shall be presented in such a way that they may be transferred and be useful to other projects.

* Articles which had been previously nominated and not selected for the award in a given year are eligible for nomination again, provided that they are within the three-year timeframe.

Each member of the PETC Jury shall review each of the nominated articles, rank or score articles, and provide sufficient detail through the use of comments as to allow final selection of a winner. The winner of the award will be based on a majority vote of the jury. After the score sheet is compiled, the jury captain shall organize a call with all jurors to discuss the results and talk about any potential issues raised by the jurors. The final scoring rubric and scoring methods will be determined by the jury and will remain confidential, as will all deliberations.

Criteria
The jury shall review each article using the following general criteria:

  1. Content falls within the topic categories described above.
  2. Article demonstrates a knowledge of, and adherence to, preservation engineering and historic preservation principles.
  3. Article advances or introduces innovative preservation engineering ideas, theories, technologies, or methods.
  4. Content of article provides information that is applicable by preservation engineering practitioners to other projects.
  5. Article contains valuable historical research that is applicable by preservation engineers to projects.
  6. Clarity of style and content.
  7. Quality and value of drawings or other illustrative material.

Note: An award is not necessary every year. If articles of sufficiently high quality are not nominated, the award will not be presented.

Composition of Jury
The jury will consist of five (5) APT PETC Members in good standing, representing a diversity of disciplines and geography of membership. Jury members shall choose a captain, and the same jury member shall not serve as captain for more than two consecutive years.

Presentation of Awards
Winning author(s) will receive the following:

  1. Notification of award approximately three months prior to the APT conference at which the award will be presented. We hope the winner(s) will be able to attend the conference to receive the award.
  2. A certificate presented at the APT conference. If an article has multiple authors, each author will receive a certificate.
  3. A complimentary ticket to the Awards Banquet at the APT Conference.
  4. An announcement of the winning article, the author(s), and a citation or link to the winning article will be published in the APT Communiqué  following the presentation of the award.
  5. A citation and link to the article will be provided on the APT PETC David Fischetti Award website page indefinitely along with winners from previous years.
  6. The winner may be given the opportunity to provide a presentation on their article topic on a webinar organized by PETC at some time following the conference.

Submittal Requirements
Submittals shall be emailed to [email protected] and must include the following information:

  • Title of article
  • Name of author(s)
  • Name and date of peer reviewed publication in which article was initially published
  • A pdf digital file of the article for jurors to use for review (file will not be distributed further)
  • A link to a free download of the article, if available (this link will be used in Communiqué announcement and on the PETC website)
  • Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or similar permalink to the online version of the article (this link will be used in Communiqué  announcement and on the PETC website if a free version is not available)
  • Name of individual making nomination
  • Date of nomination submittal
  • A brief explanation of why article was nominated

The deadline for the 2024 submissions was May 24, 2024. Email all submission required information to [email protected].

Past Award Recipients
The David Fischetti Award was established in 2017 with our first award made in 2018.

Check out other APT Awards here.

Co-Chairs:
Arlin Otto
Rachel Palisin
Rachel Will

For more information or to get involved, please contact us at [email protected].

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