Michelle Addington is dean of The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, where she holds the Henry M. Rockwell Chair in Architecture. Formerly, she served as Gerald Hines Chair in Sustainable Architectural Design at the Yale University School of Architecture and was jointly appointed as a Professor at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Prior to teaching at Yale, she taught at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the Technical University of Munich, Temple University and Philadelphia University.

Originally educated as a mechanical/nuclear engineer, Addington worked for several years as an engineer at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and for E.I DuPont de Nemours before she studied architecture. Her teaching, research, and professional work span across these disciplines with the overarching objective of determining strategic intersections between the optimal domains of physical phenomena with the practical domains of spatial, geo-political, economic, and cultural systems. Her books, chapters, essays, journal papers, and articles address topics ranging from fluid mechanics to the History of Technology to smart materials, and she has consulted on projects as diverse as the Sistine Chapel and Amazon rain forest.

Addington received a B.S.M.E. from Tulane University, a B.Arch from Temple University, and M.Des.S. and Dr.Des degrees from Harvard University. She also holds an honorary M.A. from Yale University. In 2009, she was selected as one of the country’s top ten faculty in architecture by Architect Magazine, and, in 2014, she was named as one of Connecticut’s “Women of Innovation.”