David Perkes is the founding director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, a professional outreach program of Mississippi State University College of Architecture, Art + Design. The design studio was established in Biloxi, Mississippi soon after Hurricane Katrina to provide planning, landscape and architectural design support to Gulf Coast communities and non-profit organizations.  Before creating the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, David was the director of the Jackson Community Design Center and taught in the School of Architecture’s fifth year program in Jackson, Mississippi.  David has a Master of Environmental Design degree from Yale School of Architecture, a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Utah, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University.  In 2004 David was awarded a Loeb Fellowship from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.  David is part of a four person national team to receive the 2011 Latrobe Prize from the American Institute of Architects to research Public Interest Practices in Architecture.