chair

Sherry Sajapour, AIA, ALEP

Sherry's education started as bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering (IE), she later pursued her passion for Architecture, and continued to focus on educational facilities. As an Accredited Learning Environment Planner (ALEP), she aspires to elevate the knowledge essential to the practice of educational facility planning and design.

Over 20 years of experience in the Bay Area with a desire to bolster social-emotional values, her work is guided by the mantra that every project, regardless of its scale makes a difference!

Driven by values of social equity, she is the current chair of WIA committee through which she hopes to continue to raise awareness on equitable practices and its impact in our communities and the Architecture field.

SECRETARY/ FORMER CHAIR (2022)

Kate Conley, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP

Kate Conley, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP, is a Principal at Architects FORA. She is a licensed architect in California, Colorado, and Washington State. Kate leads Building Excellence initiatives at FORA, employing her strong technical and design expertise gained from a career studded with award-winning built work and from her world-class mentors in architecture and construction. 

Passionate about equity communities and practice, Kate recently spoke about housing equity at all scales at SF Design Week and AIA Silicon Valley's Architectural Intelligence conference. She is cofounder of Firm Acquisition Consultants, 2022 AIASVC's Women in Architecture Chair, AIACA's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Task Force member, and 2022 AIA Women's Leadership Summit core planning committee member.

DIRECTOR OF EVENTS

Madhubala Ayyamperumal, ASSOC.AIA, WELL AP,
LEED AP, FITWEL AMBASSADOR

Madhubala Ayyamperumal is an emerging designer, mentor and sustainable design advocate, who believes in improving the lives of people through socially and environmentally responsible design. Having worked in Asia, Middle East & United States, her areas of competence include Healthcare, Life Science, Tenant Improvement, Hospitality, Mixed use and Workplace Design. She currently works as a lead designer at Gensler, San Francisco Bay Area. Madhu brings the fluency of sustainability and wellness centric design and believes in promoting these attributes as the basis of her design concepts.

Graduating with a Master of Architecture and Master of Engineering degree from the Pennsylvania State University, she was awarded the Henry Adams Medal and Certificate of Merit from the American Institute of Architects during her graduation. She is involved with ACE Mentorship and SFNOMA leading mentorship programs in shaping the future generation of the profession and advocating for diversity & inclusion. She is also one of the recipients of Paul J Welch ARE Scholarship offered by AIA California and Architecture Master Prize Honorable Mention. Her involvement with American Institute of Architects Silicon Valley Chapter's Emerging professionals committee and the committee on the environment has been instrumental. Her recent conversations with the professionals in the industry through spotlight interviews is significant in bringing in diverse perspectives within the profession. As a co-chair of AIASV's advocacy committee, she advocates for better community design and serves as a voice on community, legislative and design matters. When she is not busy with work, she is involved in volunteering for the causes that she cares about, typography/sketching and hiking.

DIRECTOR OF EVENTS

Deborah Lukan, AIA, LEED AP

As a Project Architect for Pickard Chilton, Deborah Lukan has delivered multiple corporate office and mixed-use projects, including most recently the Thomas F. Farrell II Building, Dominion Energy’s new headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. Currently a Project Architect for the PG&E Block Redevelopment in San Francisco, notable previous projects include ExxonMobil’s Global Campus in Houston; Four Seasons Place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and 300 North LaSalle in Chicago. Attesting to her commitment to both design excellence and sustainability, her projects have garnered nearly 30 awards and have achieved certification of nearly 12 million gsf of LEED Gold or Platinum.

A champion of young women designers, Ms. Lukan initiated and currently directs the studio-wide program to mentor designers through licensure. As a Licensing Advisor for Connecticut, she continues to guide countless designers to become architects. She has been a board member and volunteer for the ACE Mentor Program and previously served on the Clemson School of Architecture Professional Advisory Board. Ms. Lukan is an active member of AIA Silicon Valley and the WIA Silicon Valley Committee. 

Ms. Lukan received her Master of Architecture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Design from Clemson University and is a US Green Building Council LEED AP.

AIASV BOARD LIAISON

Mary E Morris, AIA, REFP, LEED AP

Mary E. Morris AIA, REFP, LEED AP is an Associate Principal at Lionakis, an architecture and structural engineering firm specializing in education, healthcare, and civic projects.  She has spent the majority of her nearly 35-year career focusing on Pre-K—14 education projects for both public and private schools throughout Northern California.  She sees this as a way to pay forward the benefits of the California public education—from Kindergarten through the University of California, Berkeley—that she benefitted from.

Mary’s volunteer time is dedicated to the pursuit of social and racial justice and includes, in addition to her participation in the WIA, more than 25 years of service as a Board Member for the YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley and more than 10 years as a member of the Downtown College Prep College Scholarship Committee.

WEBSITE & BLOG

Srivarshini Balaji, AIA, LEED Green Assoc.

Srivarshini Balaji, AIA, CASp is a Project Manager at Aedis Architects. She is a licensed architect in California and India. Sri is passionate about working towards bringing equity and diversity in the Architecture profession. 

In the past few years, Sri has taken on multiple positions and served as the Board Liaison, Secretary and Website Coordinator for Women in Architecture committee and she is excited about continuing to support the WIA Committee as Website coordinator this year.

WEBSITE & BLOG

Shweta Joshi, AIA, LEED BD+C

Shweta Joshi, a LEED BD+C certified professional, is a highly accomplished Project Designer at HMC Architects. With a strong passion for sustainability, she leads analysis and design initiatives for the HMC San Jose office, and has worked on a variety of award-winning projects. Her expertise lies in seamlessly integrating design, technology, and sustainability to create resilient and low-impact buildings. In addition to her professional pursuits, Shweta is an advisory board member at Chabot Architecture College and a Board Member at the non-profit Design for Future Foundation. In her spare time, she dedicates herself to mentoring students and emerging professionals preparing for ARE exams. Her dedication and leadership were recognized in 2022, when she received the Legacy Award from Chabot Architecture College in recognition of her outstanding partnership and leadership. Thank you. 

MEDIA team

Mani Ardalan Farhadi, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP

A creative thought leader, Mani Ardalan Farhadi’s experience spans 30+ years of strategizing for learning environments. As Senior Facilities Planner at Stanford University School of Medicine, in OFPM (Office of Facilities Planning and Management), Mani combines her passion for education with extensive planning skills to develop design ideas and solutions for research space. Using strategic thinking and consensus-building, she is integral to campus planning, having collaborated with public and private institutions from K-12 to Higher Education. 

Mani’s volunteer leadership roles include: WIA (Women in Architecture) AIA Silicon Valley mentor; Co-founder of BIBI (Banous in Building Industry) for Iranian-American women; DEI Officer for Wellesley College Alumnae Class; Advisory Board of NICA (Niosha International Conservatory of Arts); Board Member of Institute for Traditional Psychoethics and Guidance; former Board of Trustee (Los Gatos Union School District); and Chair of Bond Oversight Committee (receiving ‘Citizen Architect’ award).

She has served as moderator, juror, panelist, speaker, and docent at professional workshops and conferences, such as Learning by Design, SF Design Week, GenARTS, SCUP, EQxD, WLS, WIA, AIA, CCFC, CCLC, A4LE, SPUR, Wellesley and Mills College; with topics ranging from Career-Building to Inclusivity and Intersectionality. A graduate of Wellesley College (B.A. Arch) and Boston Architectural College (B.Arch), Mani has supplemented her formal education with training at Stanford LEAP and Supervisory Academy, MIG (Management in Governance), SCUP Planning Institute, and Leadership Los Gatos.  

MEDIA team

Sepideh Aminranjbar, Assoc. AIA, LEED Green Assoc.

Over the past 15 years in architecture firms from Iran to the USA, she has gained a great deal of experience with educational, public terminals, retail and residential projects, many in the public and private sector. In addition, she has been involved in the design and construction of multiple building types, from single and multi-story classroom buildings to multi-use buildings, campus master planning, design of exterior spaces, and interior design.

She is very passionate about teaching architecture design principles to juniors. She has a background in education, with over 10 years teaching architecture courses at Tehran University and West Valley College in Bay Area. Currently, she is working at JK Architecture Engineering as a Job Captain, while volunteering for WIA (Women In Architecture) of AIA Silicon Valley and BIBI (Banou's In Building Industry). She obtained her Master of Architecture degree from Azad University, Tehran, Iran

wia founder, aia FELLOW LIAISON

Pam Anderson-Brulé, FAIA

Pamela Anderson-Brulé is a founder and the president of Anderson Brulé Architects, Inc. Her career has been dedicated to creating an architectural design process that considers the holistic approach to achieving all of her clients’ vision for how they live, work, play, and thrive. She believes that truly exceptional architecture balances the human, social, economic and environmental needs of individuals and sustains the community in which it is created. Pamela’s postgraduate studies in business management have augmented her strong belief and emphasis in team building and expectation development. She is a careful communicator that believes in an inclusive and meaningful process whether for a large community project or an individual home.