A summary of the MITArchA Mentoring Program

To foster MIT architecture graduates’ connection with each other and extend MIT's tradition of innovation and inquiry beyond the Cambridge campus, the MITArchA (the MIT Architecture Alumni Affinity Group) is forming a multi-part initiative to support, mentor, and create dialogue among peers throughout varying professional trajectories.  The MITArchA Mentoring & Professional Forum Initiative is developing two mentorship programs, and creating an online Professional Forum community for knowledge sharing and discussion.  

The MITArchA Alumni + Student Mentoring Program fosters an exchange of professional ideas through a structured mentorship between MIT Architecture Alumni who are active in architecture or related fields (“Mentors”) and current MIT Architecture students (“Mentees”) in their final year at the MIT Architecture PhD/Master’s/Bachelor’s programs. This program is a collaboration between the MIT Architecture Department and the MIT Architecture Alumni and is meant to include all MIT Architecture degree programs and some related programs.

The MITArchA Alumni + Alumni Mentoring Program fosters an exchange of professional ideas through a committed but flexible mentorship between MIT Architecture Alumni who are active in architecture or related fields (“Mentors”) and recent graduates (“Mentees”) from the MIT Architecture PhD/Master’s/Bachelor’s programs. This program is formed by the MIT Architecture Alumni in partnership with a roster of alumni mentors and is meant to include all MIT Architecture degree programs and some related programs.

The MITArchA Professional Forum is an online community to share knowledge, gain knowledge, and engage in peer to peer discussion.  It is the online home to the Mentoring Programs, and also a place to share your professional profile, find practice affinity groups, and ask questions throughout one’s ongoing careers.


As development of the initiatives moves forward, MITArchA is seeking responses to a MITArchA Alumni Mentor/Mentee & Professional Practice Questionnaire from all members. This will help us build a collective profile of the community and gauge interests in any or all parts of the Initiative.  Hope you share our excitement in the potential of this work, and encourage you to participate in the questionnaire. Please contact us with any questions or for more information.

Mentoring Perspective: Emily Huang, M.Arch 1991

Mentoring is about learning. For me, mentoring is a continuous circle. I am a mentor and a mentee. I hope to be a part of this continuum for as long as possible. Many mentors have shown me the way to more knowledge, open minded thinking, and the joy of learning. I have also had the honor to mentor many curious and passionate people in their search for purpose and learning. Whether I give or receive, there is something learned and shared.  This allows me to be relevant, purposeful, inspired, and empathetic. The biggest benefit of mentoring is it leads to the betterment of self and community. 

My mentor, Richard Tremaglio, MIT alumnus, and I have kept in active discussions for the past 33 years, since my first semester at MIT. I connected with him as my design professor, thesis advisor, my employer for one summer, professional advisor for decades, and ultimately a like-minded sensei and invaluable friend. We talk almost once a month. 

Our alumni founded firm, Huang Iboshi Architecture based in San Francisco, (Gregory Iboshi, M.Arch ’94 and Emily Huang, M.Arch ’91) employed a MIT Senior in 2021 as our summer intern. Erica Liu, now a 2022 MIT alumna, worked with us both in person at our office and remotely from her parents’ home in San Jose. Paul Pettigrew at the School of Architecture and Planning matched us, and our relationship has grown from her internship to now, post-graduation. Both Greg and I are still Erica’s mentors on her career goals. 

I find it especially meaningful to share my experiences with those from MIT Architecture. We share a common way of thinking, a common thread that is in our educational DNA. Our academic heritage is unique and spans the decades. It is wonderful to know that we are not alone, and we are very special. 

If you want to give back to your community and to support a hopeful future, there is no better way than becoming a mentor and/or a mentee. The connection we form with each other and the values we share will give us positivity and hope. Mentoring is a gift for good.

Eleven Sentences On Knowledge Sharing: Chris Falliers, M.Arch '91

The expansion of available information, technology, and evolution of design practice areas highlights the continual need for knowledge, reasserting design’s place within a culture of inquiry. As time in the academy is a brief period for intellectual, technical, environmental, social, aesthetic exploration, how might a robust culture of inquiry continue? To support this idea, the MITArchA Professional Forum and mentoring initiatives establish a community for knowledge sharing throughout one’s career. Sharing can come in many forms, through a range of interactions, as in the examples that follow. 

After winning a competition to design a waste treatment plant and education center, the artist invited three young architects to his Vermont barn (temporary studio) for a two-month project development charette and dialogue on land art and Brutalist architecture. 

The design architect in London, the client in New York, the construction drawing production in Bangalore, and the project architect on site in San Francisco all commented on how the online Mural board evolved each member’s language of productive, concise dialogue. 

Along with cinder blocks, tin sheets, and palm fronds, delivered via wheelbarrow from the nearby road, the islanders continually imparted their knowledge on ecology, hurricanes, and construction during an improvisational design-build within a palm grove, one hundred feet in from the beachfront. 

Having purchased an aircraft interiors company to be a new center for custom 3D fabrication, the architects soon promoted the two union shop managers to design fabrication leads for every project to tap their wealth of (computational) craft knowledge. 

At the same café table within a very archetypal Italian plaza for the duration of the seven-week consultation, daily lunches between the elderly architect and junior designer became afternoon-long debates on how to position a design in a culture of historical conservatism. 

The breakthrough came after three long days and two paper tablecloth dinners, when the artist, architect, computational designer, and etching fabricator conceived of a new way to etch the photographic works at high resolution and fantastic effect on to 1720 square feet of black marble panels. 

There are likely many more interesting examples of sharing knowledge within the experiences of the alumni, and we hope this initiative provides a community platform for continued, productive inquiry.

Our MIT M.Arch Summer Intern: Kari Kimura M.Arch '95 and Shaun Roth M.Arch '95

Aloha from Kona, Hawaii!  This is Kari Kimura (MArch ’95) and Shaun Roth (MArch ’95) reporting on our recent experience hiring a current MIT MArch student for the summer. 

We have a small architecture firm with just the two of us, luxury residential on the Big Island is our niche market.  In May we posted a remote summer internship opportunity with MIT Director of Career Development Paul Pettigrew (MArch ’88) and was able to connect with 2nd year MArch student Courage Dzidula Kpodo.  Courage worked for us remotely for six weeks this summer, then came to visit us for five days in Kona.

We can easily say this experience has been one of the most meaningful connections to MIT Architecture since we graduated in 1995. 

It was invigorating sharing our current work and challenges with a graduate student who exemplifies the best qualities of MIT students:  capable fast learner, interested in the details of making it real, curious about everything, compassionate world view.  We had long discussions on the current teachings of MIT studios as we showed Courage our grad school portfolios and shared what we had learned in studio with instructors: Jack Myer, Fernando Domeyko, Maurice Smith, and Jan Wampler.

While visiting us in Kona, we all took a tour of an abalone farm at Hawaii Ocean Science & Technology Park which was informative and particularly delicious!  We went there specifically because Courage already knew that his fall studio project had something to do with a Maine oyster farm.  He recently sent us pictures from his studio site visit to Maine. 

We also visited the Donkey Mill Arts Center, one of our pro-bono passion projects.  We talked about finding the balance between paying the bills and making contributions to the fabric of the community.

Before leaving Kona for Honolulu (and then Cambridge), we reached out to Bundit Kanisthakhon (MArch ’98) who invited Courage to meet up with his University of Hawaii architecture students at Magic Island.  And then Wendy Kameoka Noblett (MArch ’96) in Cambridge to give Courage a tour of architecture firm Charles Myer & Partners (and an introduction to Toscanini’s ice cream). 

We honestly didn’t know how our posting of a remote internship would work out.  Well, it worked out quite well and we are glad we did it.