It has been a great year for Virginia Tech Professor Lisa Tucker, chair of the Interior Design Program in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies. 

She is the recipient of three national honors from the American Society of Interior Designers: 

  • The Nancy Vincent McClelland Merit Award honors an individual, organization, manufacturer, or research project that supports the interior design profession through education, research, or promotion of the value or impact of interior design. 
  • The annual Joel Polsky Prize recognizes outstanding academic contributions to interior design through print or digital communication, which Tucker received for her book “Sustainable Building Systems and Construction for Interiors.” 
  • The Educator Medalist Award is a distinguished honor from the society that recognizes members who have demonstrated outstanding service to their chapter, student chapters, and/or ASID, and/or provided significant contributions to the body of knowledge that supports the profession of interior design.

Tucker will receive the three awards July 18 during Celebration 2015, the ASID Design Awards event in Boston, Massachusetts.

In a congratulatory letter to Tucker, Randy Fiser, executive vice president and CEO of the American Society of Interior Designers wrote, “Through your research and authorship of books that have been widely adopted by interior design programs nationally, you have changed the paradigm of socially responsible interior design. Your work has influenced a generation of students and instructors.”

As the Virginia Tech Interior Design Program chair, Tucker has organized the curriculum around sustainable and socially responsible design as a foundation of practice. 

As a part of this work, she has published three text books for interior design students: “Sustainable Building Systems and Construction for Designers,” now in its second edition and adopted by more than 35 universities in the U.S.; “Designing for Sustainable Residential and Commercial Interiors”; and “Designing for Cradle to Cradle Home,” co-written with Anna Marshall Baker.

“As an educator, I have had the privilege to teach thousands of design students,” said Tucker. “I have dedicated my life to making the world a better place and know that the biggest impact I can have is through educating those entering the profession.”

In 2011, DesignIntelligence named her one of the Top 25 Most Admired Design Educators. Amongst her numerous awards for teaching and research, Tucker was the recipient of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies 2015 Excellence in Scholarship Award and, in 2013, was inducted to the Virginia Tech Academy of Teaching Excellence. 

In addition, Tucker has served the interior design profession as the National President of Interior Design Educators Council, as the Virginia Chapter president of American Society of Interior Designers, and as a Council of Interior Design Accreditation site visitor and team leader.

Tucker is a practicing interior designer and architect with a bachelor of science degree in architecture, a master's degree in architectural history and a certificate of historic preservation from the University of Virginia. She also received her Ph.D. in architectural studies from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her work focuses on the relationship between historic preservation and sustainability.

 

 

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