The lead architect for Washington, D.C.'s newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture, Zena Howard collaborates with clients with specialized design goals. For instance she's designed environmentally and

spatially sensitive spaces for autistic children and culturally significant buildings and locations.

Howard also visits elementary schools to encourage girls to join the profession.

Serving clients for two decades, Christine Matheu leads projects from initial concept through its design and construction. Matheu holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also taught

architecture for many years.

Atlanta-based design professional Fardia Abu-Bakare tells the New York Times African-American women make up less than 0.3 percent of the industry. "I am a rarity in the field. It’s overwhelming being in

an industry that doesn’t see your demographic enough to correlate it with the occupation you love.”

Lesley Naa Norle Lokko is an academic and novelist who earned her PhD in Architecture from the University of London. 

The U.S. "wouldn't be what it is without immigration, but on the other

hand the model of assimilation is so brutal that if, for whatever reason, you don't make it, you fall to the bottom," Lokko said in an interview with the

target="_blank">Independent. 

Patricia Anahory is an architect and the director for director of an emerging research center dealing with urban and territory issues in Capetown. She holds a Masters Degree in Architecture from Princeton University. 

Anahory has discussed the gender and societal control in architecture in the publication "Reframing the Body: The Women's Prison."