L. Jane Frederick, principal at Frederick + Frederick Architects in Beaufort, South Carolina, has been inaugurated as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) president for the year 2020.

Aside from running an award-winning practice and being a Fellow of the AIA, Frederick has played various roles within the AIA organization itself in previous years, including serving as the AIA 2019 first vice president, South Atlantic Regional representative on the AIA Strategic Council, and president of AIA South Carolina. Frederick has also served on the AIA Small Firm Round Table Executive Committee and on National Architecture Accreditation Board accreditation teams, according to an AIA announcement highlighting her inauguration. 

Frederick + Frederick Architects, which bills itself as a firm offering "unparalleled expertise in hot and humid architecture," received AIA South Carolina's 2017 Firm Award, among other awards.

As the new head of the national AIA organization, Frederick follows AIA 2019 President William J Bates and AIA 2018 President Carl Elefante. 

In recent years, the Institute's top post has been held by an increasingly diverse set of practitioners, paralleling the organization's attempts to make diversity more central to the field. Susan A. Maxman served as the AIA's first female president in 1992, for example, while Katherine Lee Schwennsen served as the second woman in the position in 2005. Raj Barr-Kumar became the first architect of color to serve as AIA president in 1997, and ten years later, in 2007, Marshall Purnell became the AIA's first African American president. William J. Bates, Frederick's predecessor, served as the organization's second African American president. 

The AIA's first president was Richard Upjohn, one of the original founders of the AIA, who served from 1857, when the organization was founded, until 1876. Over the following decades a who's-who of that era's top architects also served in the post, including Daniel H. Burnham (1894-1895), Charles F. McKim (1902-1903), and Cass Gibert (1908-1909). 

Frederick will serve as AIA president until December 4, 2020.