Anthony, Kathryn H. (1955-) | University of Illinois Archives

Kathryn H. Anthony (b. 1955), Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Distinguished Professor, is recognized as a pioneering figure in the study of gender and diversity issues in architecture. She is the longest-serving woman faculty member at the University of Illinois (UIUC) School of Architecture (1984-present) and an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Landscape Architecture, the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, and the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program. Anthony's teaching, scholarship, and service has been crucial in challenging the architectural field to design spaces for a diversity of users and user needs.

Anthony was born in New York City in 1955 to Anne Skoufis Anthony (b. 1924) and Harry Antoniades Anthony (1922-2018). She lived with her family in Leonia, New Jersey, from 1957 to 1969; they moved to La Jolla, California, in 1969, where she graduated from La Jolla High School in 1973. Anthony earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (1976) and a PhD in Architecture (1981) from the University of California, Berkeley. Following the completion of her studies, she served as visiting lecturer in psychology at San Francisco State University (1981), visiting lecturer at University of California, Berkeley, (summers, 1982 and 1983), and associate professor of architecture at California State University, Pomona (1981-84).

At UIUC's School of Architecture, Anthony has held the positions of assistant professor (1984-89), associate professor (1989-96), and full professor (1996-present). Anthony teaches, researches, and writes about how the built environment affects people. Her expertise is in social, economic, and behavioral factors in contemporary architecture, including gender and race in contemporary architecture and entrepreneurship. Her influential book Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession (2001) lays bare the gender and racial discrimination in the architectural profession and argues that a diverse profession is better able to design for a diversity of users.

Courses taught at UIUC include Social and Behavioral Factors for Design; Gender and Race in Contemporary Architecture; Cinema, Environment and Behavior; Entrepreneurship in Design, Diversity, Environment and Behavior; and Research Methods in Designed Environments. Anthony lectured on diversity issues at universities in the United States and around the world, including Shanghai Jiguang Polytechnic College, Shanghai, China (2016), Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA (2019), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2019), and Technological University Dublin, Ireland (2020). She delivered keynote addresses at conferences, including for the Organization of Women Architects and Design Professionals (2003), National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA, 2002), American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS, 2004), and the International Conference on the Constructed Environment, Chicago, IL (2011).

As an expert in the architectural field, Anthony discussed gender and diversity issues on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, CBS Sunday Morning, National Public Radio (NPR), Radio New Zealand (RNZ), and CNN. She has also been featured in the Chicago Tribune, the Economist, the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Time.com, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and more. In 2010, she testified before Congress regarding gender equity in public restrooms during hearings related to the Restroom Gender Parity In Federal Buildings Act (H.R. 4869).

Anthony said of her scholarship: "I want [future architects] to realize that they have a solemn responsibility to design spaces that work as well as they can for as many different kinds of people as possible" (Now What?!, 2020). Publications include Shedding New Light on Art Museum Additions: Front Stage and Back Stage Experiences (co-author Altaf Engineer, 2017) and Defined by Design: The Surprising Power of Hidden Gender, Age, and Body Bias in Everyday Products and Places (2017) as well as her two award-winning books, Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession (2001) and Design Juries on Trial: The Renaissance of the Design Studio (1991).

Anthony received the Collaborative Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects in 2003 (AIA) for her books Designing for Diversity and Design Juries on Trial. In 2005, she received the Achievement Award from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). In 2010, she was awarded the lifetime title of ACSA Distinguished Professor for her contributions through teaching, publications, and service to architectural education from the Association of Collegiate Students of Architecture (ACSA). Anthony received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Chicago Women in Architecture (CWA) in 2020 and the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education in 2021.

On May 24, 1980, Anthony married historian and professor Barry Daniel Riccio (1954-2001) with whom she later wrote Running for Our Lives: An Odyssey with Cancer (2004).

Sources:

"2021 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Architectural Education: Kathryn H. Anthony, PhD," AIA, accessed May 6, 2021, https://www.aia.org/showcases/6349279-kathryn-h-anthony-phd.

"Chicago Women in Architecture Foundation Names Kathryn H. Anthony, PhD, as 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner," CWA, accessed May 5, 2021, https://cwarch.org/cwa-foundation/cwaf-lifetime-achievement-award-2020/.

"Kathryn H. Anthony, Ph.D., Profile," UIUC Architecture, accessed April 15, 2020, https://arch.illinois.edu/faculty/kathryn-h-anthony-phd.

"Kathryn H. Anthony Short Bio," downloadable attachment, accessed April 15, 2020, https://arch.illinois.edu/faculty/kathryn-h-anthony-phd.

Kathryn H. Anthony, accessed April 15, 2020, https://kathryn-anthony.com/.

"Kathryn H. Anthony," Illinois Experts, accessed April 15, 2020, https://experts.illinois.edu/en/persons/kathryn-h-anthony.

Serfling, Rachel, "Designing for Diversity," Now What?!, accessed April 16, 2020, https://www.nowwhat-architexx.org/articles/designingfordiversity.

Wikipedia, s.v. "Kathryn H. Anthony," accessed April 15, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_H._Anthony.