About Speaker

Emily Pilloton-Lam is the Founder and Executive Director of the nonprofit Girls Garage. An architectural designer, builder, educator, and author, she has led thousands of young women and gender-expansive youth to design and build pro-bono civic architecture projects in and for their communities. Her research and pedagogy is rooted in social and spatial justice, community-based design, and participatory practice across the architecture, engineering, and construction industries.

She has presented her work and ideas on the TED stage, The Colbert Report, and in the documentary film If You Build It, and has served as Visiting Professor and Adjunct Faculty at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design, UC Davis, and Stanford University. A power tool lover and hardware nerd at heart, Emily lives with her family, human and canine, in Berkeley, California.