DesignIntelligence 30 Most Admired Educators for 2013

Top educators and administrators from the disciplines of architecture, industrial design, interior design, and landscape architecture for 2013.

Each year, DesignIntelligence honors excellence in education and education administration by naming 30 exemplary professionals in these fields. The 2013 class of education role models was selected by DesignIntelligence staff with extensive input from thousands of design professionals, academic department heads, and students. Educators and administrators from the disciplines of architecture, industrial design, interior design, and landscape architecture are considered for inclusion.

Alan Balfour

Georgia Institute of Technology

Balfour has demonstrated courage, innovation and leadership in designing and implementing structural changes that have revitalized the College of Architecture and its programs at Georgia Tech, including such diverse areas as industrial design and music.

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Phil Bernstein

Yale University

Bernstein has become a national treasure as a thought leader in technology and practice. This holds promise to extend the reach and success of the design professions while giving a unique and challenging focus to his students in professional practice courses at Yale and in his lecturing around the world.

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David Buege

University of Arkansas

Buege brings a clarity and consistency of rigor, focus and exploration to his work with faculty, administration and students. He has become well known for high standards and getting the best out of each person he works with. He makes the difficult easier to understand. 

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Connie Caldwell

Syracuse University

A huge asset in design education, Caldwell opens doors for professional practices to access student strengths and sets interviews for employment. She coaches students on interview skills and helps firms on selection of talent, earning a high degree of trust.

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Rob Corser

University of Washington

Corser has become one of the leaders in design and digital fabrication. He has established an energetic presence on campus that brings infectious enthusiasm and breadth of knowledge to students and his colleagues.

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Maurice Cox

Tulane University

With a strong educational foundation under John Hedjuk at Cooper Union, Cox has gone on to do great things educationally that include a Loeb Fellowship and teaching awards. He is also a former Mayor of Charlottesville, VA.

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Robert Dunay

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

A visionary leader with a proven ability to integrate teaching, research and professional practice, Dunay demonstrates how each year of service to students can be different, entrepreneurial and inspiring on a pathway of continuous change. He is a role model for inspiring authentic teamwork.

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Bronne Dytoc

Southern Polytechnic State University

Dytoc loves what he does and it overflows from him as he teaches. He is a brilliant person who approaches life with a willingness to help and he does so with humility. His is an enduring legacy at this Georgia college.

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Dan Harding

Clemson University

As director of the Community Research and Design Center, Harding focuses on utilizing the latest design build techniques as a tool to address community issues. He has a unique stature in his field as he gives students hands-on experience. The project assignments that he gives to the classes are client oriented and not frivolous; they are real world relevant and students are shown how to make themselves indispensable as they relate to economic scenarios of the future.

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Heidi Hohmann

Iowa State University

Known by students to be one of the strictest professors, Hohmann is also one of the very favorite teachers on campus. With an incredible wealth of knowledge about the history of design she is also a creative designer of landscapes. Her reviews for final projects are always meaningful with lasting value. She doesn’t sugarcoat anything but always gives a profound educational experience.

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Carlos Jimenez

Rice University

An incredible teacher who has earned the admiration of his students because he maintains a rigor and level of detail with special attention to materiality. Jiminez demonstrates balance in life with vision for improving both education and professional practice.

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Wes Jones

Southern California Institute of Architecture

Jones has a solid understanding of the relationship between technology and architecture and the role of technology in society. His work and education are rooted in extreme logic with strong theoretical context to back up every decision. A brilliant instructor and practitioner, he considers the historical, environmental and present-day relevance.

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Tin Man Lau

Auburn University

Lau is a major influence, providing guidance and leadership to students as they navigate their journey through the design education experience. He consistently delivers inspiring, real world relevance.

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Joanna Lombard

University of Miami

Lombard engages her students in learning with a style that inspires, cajoles, builds confidence and leaves no student without focused attention. She transmits an awesome body of knowledge in sustainability and health care design and gets significant alumni praise.

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Adam Marcus

University of Minnesota

Marcus provides his own brand of excellence that challenges students while trusting and respecting the unique differences they bring to the future of the profession. He has a work ethic that has brought success to the College of Design’s Catalyst Week and Digital Provocations Symposium.

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Beth Meyer

University of Virginia

With a powerful network of thought leaders she is shaping the future of the design professions. Her energy for criticism, writing and teaching is unmatched. She not only pushes her students to develop their own voice and to take the lead role in the future development of cities, but also grounds this in her historical and theoretical knowledge. She always makes time for students and those in professional practice who will be hiring her students.

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Eric Owen Moss

Southern California Institute of Architecture

Unusually gifted, Moss has become a role model educator who continues to raise the bar for all in the architecture and design professions, inspiring thousands of students worldwide.

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Moshen Mostafavi

Harvard University

It’s not easy to lead Harvard, but Mostafavi has taken a courageous path to further advance the educational programs for students while providing strong support to his talented faculty. The design professions in planning, urban design, landscape architecture and architecture keep a hopeful and watchful eye on the progress at Harvard, all the time knowing that the future of the design professions is born here and on other leading on campuses such as Harvard Graduate School of Design.

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Caroline O’Donnell

Cornell University

O’Donnell brings intelligence and is willing to challenge conventions. She organizes her teaching and studios carefully, guiding students’ individual style and raising the bar of projects. She is a person who demonstrates continuous improvement and daily shows how professionals can grow and have more influence.

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Alex Pang

California Polytechnic State University, Pomona

Pang uses an exploration technique that brings students into highly relevant conversations. His phenomenal knowledge of theory and history will serve the future of the design professions well. He encourages students to become genuine talents and offers up constantly refreshing insight while respecting all in the world of education and practice.

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Sharran Parkinson

Virginia Commonwealth University

Parkinson is an energetic and experienced educator in the field of design who has become a leader in one of the strongest interior design programs, now available on both VCU campuses, Doha and Richmond. She has forged relationships with the design associations to calibrate programs in ways students will have marketable skills upon graduation.

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Patrick J. Rand

North Carolina State University

Rand has a special ability to teach both traditional and modern applications of building materials and assemblies in a manner that allows students to develop a well-rounded store of knowledge to draw from when deciding ways to articulate or inform design concepts. His own personal brand reputation is to “welcome new ideas,” and students resonate to him.

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Dan Rockhill

University of Kansas

Rockhill leads the design/build Studio 804, teaching students about development, design, financing and building. Leadership and entrepreneurialism fuse together under his teaching and mentoring excellence.

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Michael Rotondi

Southern California Institute of Architecture

Rotondi is one of the most often mentioned for educator of the year awards. He stimulates learning on a broad level for human design that involves all the senses, including the intangible sixth sense. He is a joyful, guru-like educator who keeps an eye out for the future of the profession.

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Tony Schuman

New Jersey Institute of Technology

This professor is characterized as one of the most ethical, historically rigorous, humane and engaging educators in America today. Schuman is thoroughly committed to enhancing the lives of his students, including those who pursue non-traditional professional practice.

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Allan Shearer

University of Texas at Austin

Shearer brings a rare combination of interests to the design professions and an intellectual depth that is leading the discipline of landscape architecture into new territory in environmental security. His writing and teaching has brought the professions together for conversations between military theorists and planners, geographers and designers to deal with environmental changes.

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Anya Sirota

University of Michigan

One of the role models in the academic community who is demanding, intelligent and passionate to create solutions for the future. Sirota is willing to thoroughly engage with students and strives to understand their unique potential. She changes the way people think about careers in architecture by offering a foundation of optimism beyond the borders of traditions to affect all things in the environment.

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Ruth Tofle

University of Missouri

As the department chair, Tofle has constructed an interior design program that is widely regarded by practitioners as one of the best in the United States. She is energetic, fair, knowledgeable and respected for her scholarship, teaching and leading abilities. Her guidance has established an alignment between the design professions and the academy.

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Paula Wallace

Savannah College of Art and Design

Wallace has emerged as one of the world’s strongest advocates for design excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration and teamwork ranging from digital design competencies to bold and beautiful historic preservation.

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Dick Williams

University of Arizona

The teaching legend Professor Williams turned 98 in September. He fondly recalls his days on the faculty at the University of Illinois; he remembers the thousands of hours spent critiquing student projects and the names of so many who have continued on to contribute much to the architecture profession. He is now officially retired but is proud of his “family” at the University of Arizona where he still has voice and influence and continues as a role model for teaching faculty everywhere.

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Randall Wilson

Art Center College of Design

For more than 30 years, Wilson has made significant contributions as an innovator of curriculum and pedagogy. There is excellence in every studio he teaches and he is always testing the periphery of design.

Comments

• Posted by Ehsaan Mesghali on Dec 16, 2012 11:58 PM

  alex is an undeniable asset to Cal Poly Pomona. first a teacher, now a friend, he was instrumental in my architectural education and persuaded me to continue a theoretical education in architecture. I hope to one day teach architecture through his inspiration. really phenomenal.

• Posted by Jim Cramer on Dec 18, 2012 1:23 PM

  I've long admired educators who are absolutely on the mark about how learning happens in the design professions. They don't get recognized nearly enough for all that they do. This is our way saying thanks and bringing attention to the role models. It is good to see one of our recent top educators, Robert Greenstreet named the new winner of the Topaz Prize. Congratulations Bob!

• Posted by Scott Conti on Dec 19, 2012 3:18 PM

  Why no K-12 design educators?

• Posted by Paul Blasco on Jan 20, 2013 8:50 AM

  In my third year in architecture school, I planned on shifting to fine arts painting (which is my first love) because I somehow lost interest on and sense of purpose of the subject. In my supposedly last semester, I took up Prof. Dytoc's class, among others. Everything changed after that (I am now practicing architecture for more than four years). Prof. Dytoc always has a way of elegantly teaching the architecture subject that captures its very essence. I owe to him my perspective on architecture. We remain good colleagues ever since. Hats off to you professor...

• Posted by Jim Cramer on Jan 28, 2013 4:14 PM

  Teachers like Dean Greenstreet and Professor Dytoc cut through higher education "bull" that creates -- in some schools -- a negative subculture of stonewalling progress. But with guidance, students get into a flow of new realities. This becomes their advantage in the future marketplace. Attitudes and skill sets lead to layers of progressive success and the educators will never be forgotten by their students. They become a virtual life force.