Monica Ponce de Leon, a pioneering educator and award-winning architect, is dean of Princeton University's School of Architecture.
Ponce de Leon has served as dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor from 2008 to 2015, where she is also the Eliel Saarinen Collegiate Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning. Before her appointment at the University of Michigan, Ponce de Leon was a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she served on the faculty for 12 years.
A recipient of the prestigious National Design Award in Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum, Ponce de Leon co-founded Office dA, in 1991, and in 2011 started her own design practice, MPdL Studio, with offices in New York, Boston and Ann Arbor. MPdL Studio brings together an interdisciplinary team of practitioners with several years of experience working together at the former Office dA. We thrive in the diversity of our backgrounds, as well as the richness and wide range of our skills. With degrees in Fine Arts, Architecture, Material Systems, Environmental Design, Historic Preservation, and Urban Design, each member of our team brings a unique point of view to the design process. We have extensive experience on institutional projects and have developed methodologies that allow the projects to be on time and on budget while delivering innovative and meaningful design. While MPdL Studio is a relatively new venture established in 2011, the former Office dA was in practice for over twenty years. Our team of 10 designers and administrative staff includes two licensed professionals.
