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Erin Carraher, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP (she/her)

Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies

email: carraher@arch.utah.edu

office: Rm 235, 375 1530 E, Salt Lake City, UT 84112

courses

ARCH 2634 Architecture Design Fundamentals Studio

ARCH 3010 Architectural Studio I

ARCH 3050 Architectural Communication I

about

Erin Carraher (pronounced "CARE-ah-her") is an architect and associate professor at the University of Utah School of Architecture. A West Virginia native, Erin attended Virginia Tech where she received a B.Arch degree with honors and the AIA Henry Adams Medal and Certificate for first ranking undergraduate and Yale University M.Arch II where she was awarded the Gene Lewis Prize for Excellence in Residential Design. As an associate professor, Erin focuses on collaborative, community-engaged projects in studio and associated courses that immerse students from the earliest stages of their education in the emerging issues of architectural practice.

 

Her professional and academic work has received top honors at the university, state, and national levels, including the University of Utah’s 2018–19 Public Service Professorship, a position meant to further strengthen community-engaged learning experiences tied to civic engagement through partnerships with local communities. Her research on collaboration and leadership recently resulted in a national AIA Continuing Education Resource (AIA 2015), and the co-authored the book, Leading Collaborative Architectural Practice (Wiley 2017).

 

With an emphasis on undergraduate education in the architecture major, Erin works to empower students to make positive impact through their work and to understand their position within the larger continuum of professional practice beginning on their first day of school. To do this, she helps lead the junior undergraduate fall integrated course sequence of studio, research methods, and communications (of which she teaches studio and communications), and develops special project opportunities that engage students in meaningful collaborations with practitioners, researchers, and community partners. Her teaching approach is based on principles of integration, application, immersion, inclusion, and collaboration, which inform and are informed by her research work in similar areas.