Caroline is an architectural professional with experience in sustainable design, community engagement, and international development. She works at HKS Architects on the firmwide Design-Green Team. Through this role, she enables teams to develop design thinking and strategies around sustainability, healthy buildings, building performance, embodied carbon, and resilience. In addition, Caroline recently finished a Master of International Cooperation in Sustainable Emergency Architecture at UIC Barcelona. Now, she collaborates with the Urban Climate Change Research Network EU Hub to advise cities around just transitions to climate change adaptation. Over the last decade, Caroline placed in several international architecture competitions, created neonatal ward renovation plans for 22 hospitals in Malawi on a USAID grant through the Rice Global Health Institute, spoke during the National Healthcare Design Conference at the NextGen Forum, and accepted numerous awards, including the Presidential Call to Service Award, presented by Barack Obama, for her completion of over 4,000 hours of community service. Her experience with research, design, and service spans Malawi, India, Jordan, Spain, Brazil, South Africa, Dominican Republic, Italy, China, Thailand, Uganda, Philippines, and the US. Her purpose is to serve others, using architecture as a catalyst to shape positive outcomes for both people and the environment.
Tiffany Wu is an architecture student at Rice University. Her work explores how novel spatial and material strategies produce social change in contemporary environments. At Rice, she received the Class of 1965 Scholarship in Architecture, the Mary Ellen Hale Lovett Traveling Fellowship, and the Charles Tapley Award. She has worked as an intern in Los Angeles and New York.
Yanela Diaz is graduate of G. Holmes Braddock Sr. High, who will be attending Rice University this fall to study architecture. Her interest in architecture was fueled from experience in an internship and summer program, where her skills and drive led her to win the Top Architecture Student award. She wishes to pursue a master’s in architecture and a bachelor’s in material sciences. Her future goal is to combine the field of architecture and sciences; she wishes to research new recyclable construction materials and advocate for environmentally aware designs. Thanks to the Diversity Advancement Scholarship, her dreams are a closer step to reality.