Amale Andraos Appointed GSAPP Dean

The news comes nearly eleven months after Mark Wigley announced he'd be stepping down as dean, and exactly three weeks before the start of the fall semester. According to Columbia News, Andraos's appointment is effective September 1.

Andraos is principal at the New York-based firm Work Architecture Company (WORKac), as well as an associate professor of architecture, planning and preservation at GSAPP since 2011. With her husband and work partner Dan Wood, WORKac has completed a number of projects in New York City as well as a renovation and expansion of the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, what they described as their "most significant completed project outside of New York."

Previous to teaching at Columbia, Andraos taught at a number of schools including Princeton University, where she focused on urban and environmental issues. In the article at Columbia News, Andraos says: "Columbia is already a leader in addressing the challenges of high-speed urbanization around the globe and I believe it can lead in recasting architecture in dialogue with our urban societies and the natural environment. This is a School whose creativity and diversity of global perspectives makes it an ideal place to consider these large issues and ideas."

President Bollinger is quoted in the same article: "Amale is a new leader among a rising generation of creative architects and designers of our physical environment. She is just the kind of person who can further expand the role of the school as a center of interdisciplinary thinking across Columbia about how to develop a more just and sustainable society."