Aki Ishida

Aki Ishida, AIA, LEED AP, is the Sam and Marilyn Fox Professor and Director of the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of “Blurred Transparencies in Contemporary Glass Architecture: Material, Culture, and Technology” (2020). Ishida earned a Bachelor of Architecture in 1995 from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design in 1998 from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.

Ishida began her career working for Rafael Vinoly Architect PC on the design of a new stadium at Princeton University. She later joined James Carpenter Design Associates in New York, where she gained experience in the artistic and technical applications of glass, then worked with I.M. Pei Architect on the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar. Before joining the faculty at Virginia Tech in 2012, Ishida taught design at the Rhode Island School of Design, The Pratt Institute, The Parsons School of Design, and Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea. She joined Washington University in St. Louis as Professor and Director in 2024.