UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design (CED) has named a successor to its Architecture Chair in its effort to fill a leadership void created after popular former dean Vishaan Chakrabarti announced his unexpected departure in early September. 

Current Professor of Architecture Lisa Iwamoto was appointed Chair of the department effective December 1st by the CED’s acting Dean Renee Chow.

Iwamoto has been on the faculty at Berkeley for the past two decades and is also a founding partner of the San Francisco-based practice IwamotoScott Architecture, which has won multiple national awards since its founding in 2002.

“I am pleased to appoint Lisa as the next chair of the department. She has dedicated her career to balancing practice with academia and enters the position with a well-rounded approach to architectural education that can meet the contemporary environmental challenges and opportunities we face,” Chow said in a statement.

Iwamoto is a graduate of the Harvard GSD and the University of Colorado and comes to the position with expertise in material and construction techniques. Her 2009 book Fabrications: Architectural and Material Techniques from Princeton University Press is still considered a seminal text for design students. As chair, a CED statement says Iwamoto plans to “foreground and strengthen the profile of architectural design as the synthesis of the social, cultural, and technological research for which the department is historically known.”