The Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design will host the fourth session of the Spring 2026 Leadership in Design conversation series on Friday, April 3, at 12 p.m. in the Young Gallery on the second floor of Vol Walker Hall on the University of Arkansas campus. This series of women-led conversations is designed to introduce students, faculty and staff to the idea of design leadership through moderated, interdisciplinary conversations with established leaders from across the design professions.
This session will feature Billie Tsien, Cheryl Durst, Ellen Dunham-Jones and Diane Hoskins. The event will follow a roundtable format, with brief introductory presentations from each participant followed by a moderated discussion and audience questions. This conversation is intended to be accessible and interactive, offering insight into leadership paths, professional responsibility and the evolving role of design in shaping the built environment.
Billie Tsien, AIA, is a New York-based architect, mentor and leading voice in the design and broader cultural community. Her approach to architecture is rooted in the spirit of collaboration with a portfolio imbued with a sense of optimism, warmth, texture and serenity. She is a founding partner of Studio Tsien and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. In parallel to her architecture practice, Tsien teaches at Yale University and is a devoted participant in many arts organizations. Her dedication to work and the cultural landscape at large has garnered her numerous awards, including the National Medal of Arts from President Obama, the 2013 AIA Architecture Firm Award, and the 2019 Praemium Imperiale presented by the Japan Art Association. As an educator, arts advocate and practitioner, Tsien is steadfast in her mission to create a better world through architecture.
Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA, is Executive Vice President and CEO of the International Interior Design Association, where she is committed to achieving broad recognition for the value of design and its significant role in society. With 15,000 members across 58 countries, Durst oversees the strategic direction of IIDA, setting an agenda that leads the industry in creating community, advancing advocacy and continuing decades of work toward equity. Durst is a member of the International WELL Building Institute Governance Council, as well as a Trustee for Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the New York School of Interior Design. She has been referred to by Interior Design magazine as “an ambassador for innovation and expansion, and a visionary strategist.” Durst was inducted into the prestigious Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2016 as the recipient of its first-ever Leadership Award. She is the first African American woman to be inducted into the industry’s Hall of Fame. A lifelong knowledge enthusiast and voracious reader who has considered librarian, astronaut and journalist as potential careers, she never walks away from meeting someone without gleaning a bit of their story — a talent she currently employs on her podcast, “The Skill Set,” which focuses on the intangible skills that make us good at what we do.
Ellen Dunham-Jones directs the Master of Science in Urban Design program and hosts the “REDESIGNING CITIES” podcast at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Consistently recognized in Planetizen’s surveys as one of the world’s 100 most influential urbanists, she is an authority on successful re-use, redevelopment and regreenings of aging auto-dominated properties. She is the co-author with June Williamson of two award winning books: Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges (2021) and Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (2009). The co-authors have been featured in The New York Times, TED, NPR, PBS, BBC and other prominent venues. Dunham-Jones is a Fellow of the Congress for the New Urbanism, consults and lectures widely, and serves on various national committees.
Diane Hoskins, FAIA, NCARB, is Global Co-Chair of Gensler, where she leads the world’s largest architecture and design firm — more than 6,000 people across 57 offices serving 3,500-plus clients in more than 100 countries — driving firm growth, global strategy and organizational excellence. A catalyst for the Gensler Research Institute, she has advanced industry-shaping tools like the Workplace Performance Index®, City Pulse Survey and Experience Index. With deep expertise in architecture, design, real estate and business, Hoskins also serves on the boards of Boston Properties and the Real Estate Roundtable and is a former Global Chair of the Urban Land Institute. Her global thought leadership includes speaking at the UN’s Habitat Assembly, Climate Action Summit and three consecutive Conference of the Parties (COP) conferences (COP26 Glasgow, COP27 Sharm El-Sheikh, COP28 Dubai). Her insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes and more. A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Hoskins holds an architecture degree from MIT and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.
The Spring 2026 Leadership in Design Conversation Series is funded by the following funds: the Cromwell Architects Engineers Lecture in the Role of Engineering in Architecture and Design Fund; the Michael Lejong Leadership in Architecture Lecture Fund; the Martha Dellinger Memorial Lecture, given by Sharon and Jim Parker; the ZweigWhite Leadership in Design Lecture Fund; the Evo Business Environments Endowed Lecture in Interior Architecture and Design Fund; the Ernie Jacks Memorial Lecture Funds, sponsored by Marlon Blackwell Architects; and the Dean’s Initiative Funds.
