Welcome to Nearly One-Fourth, the podcast dedicated to being a space for women in architecture sharing their experiences in the profession. On today's episode I am happy to welcome Yiselle Santos Rivera to the Nearly One-Fourth Community.
Yiselle Santos Rivera, AIA, NOMA, LSSYB, WELL AP, LEED AP BD+C, originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, is a Principal and the Global Director of Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion at HKS. Yiselle is an activist architect that works to dismantle barriers and bring visibility to underrepresented designers by creating inclusive workplaces. As medical planner, Yiselle amplifies the voices of marginalized communities encouraging processes of co-creation to provide equitable access to care for all. She is considered an advisor to clients and firm leaders in their journeys to build more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organizations.
As an AIA committee member, Mrs. Santos Rivera led the creation of the Ethnical Diverse Additional Considerations section of AIA’s Alternative Care Site Preparedness Assessment Tool V2.0 and contributed to the development of AIA’s Equitable Development Frameworks. is a storyteller, a “Latinas in Architecture” book contributor, 2015 Christopher Kelley Leadership Development Program Scholar, LA.IDEADC committee co-founder, AIA Diversity Recognition Program award-winning WIELD event founder, 2020 AIA National Board member, and 2021-22 NOMA Research & Development Chair. Currently, Yiselle is the AIADC Chapter President and recipient of the 2018 AIA Associate Award, 2019 AIA Diversity Program Recognition Award, and the 2022 AIA Young Architect Award.
In this episode Yiselle and I unpack many topics including but not limited to:
Challenges becoming a leader as a Minority + Woman;
Firms acting as advocates for their employees, being leaders vs managers;
Justice, Equity, Diversity + Inclusion (JEDI)
Implementing JEDI approaches into projects and your firm.
This list is just the tip of the iceberg of what Yiselle and I talked about. We had a great conversation and I am excited to share it with you all!
Thank you all for tuning in to the first episode of Nearly One-Fourth! I hope you enjoy joining the community!
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