Monica Ponce de Leon
Dean and Professor of Architectural Design
B.Arch, University of Miami
M.Arch, Harvard University
MPdL Studio, New York, Boston, Ann Arbor, and Princeton
http://www.mpdlstudio.com
Office: Architecture Building S-110
Email: mpdl@princeton.edu
Monica Ponce de Leon is a professor and dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton University and founding principal of MPdL Studio. From 2008 through 2015, she was the dean of Taubman College at the University of Michigan. For over 12 years, Ponce de Leon taught at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, where she became a professor and served as the Graduate Program coordinator and was director of the Digital Fabrication Lab. Prior to her appointment at Harvard, Ponce de Leon was an assistant professor at Northeastern University. She has been a visiting professor or scholar at various institutions across the United States, including SCI-Arc, Rhode Island School of Design, and Georgia Tech, where she was the first Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design. In recognition of her extraordinary contributions in academia, Ponce de Leon received ACADIA’s distinguished teaching award.
As a practitioner, Ponce de Leon has been honored with the National Design Award in Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum; the Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the USA Target Fellow in Architecture and Design from United States Artists; and the Young Architects and Emerging Voices prize from the Architectural League of New York. Her work has received numerous awards, including 13 Progressive Architecture Awards, 14 awards from the American Institute of Architects, as well as the prestigious Harleston Parker Medal from the Boston Society of Architects. In 2016 Ponce de Leon was inducted into the National Academy of Design.
Ponce de Leon has a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, as well as a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami.
