TORCH University: Building Your Brand

Create a brand around your name or your career and discover tools that can help you get ahead! Join a networking event for built environment and sustainability students, recent grads, and emerging professionals! Learn from professionals and meet students from other schools for socializing, food, raffles, and more. Bring a friend!

Schedule:
6:00-6:20: Networking
6:20-6:30: Introduction
6:30-7:00: Guest Presentations

• Joann Lui, Personal Branding Strategist, Founder, Women Architects Collective
• Brian Baxter, Senior Consultant, Bespoke Careers  
• Jessica Miller, Project Executive, Skanska USA Civil Northeast

7:00-7:30: Q&A
7:30-8:00: Raffle and Fireside Networking

Organized by the TORCH Mentorship program, TORCH University creates opportunities for networking and professional development for students preparing to join the architectural, landscape, interior, computational, sustainability, and engineering professions. It collaborates with the institutions that support the profession to encourage healthy discourse about the field and its members. The program features experienced practitioners, emerging professionals, and school representatives in dialogue about the challenges of transitioning from college to the profession.

About the Speakers:
Joann Lui is a licensed architect turned personal branding strategist and the Founder of Women Architects Collective. In 2014, after being forgotten for a raise as the only woman at her level, she started building her personal brand in order to not be forgotten again. While climbing the ladder at a corporate job and experiencing burnout, she started the Women Architects Collective and began sharing her career journey online. Since then, she built a personal brand that has given her a voice and confidence while coaching dozens of architects to do the same. 

Brian Baxter is a graduate of the Syracuse University School of Architecture. After spending ten years in architecture, he took the opportunity to help grow a small menswear company. His passion for architecture didn’t wane and he joined Bespoke New York, where he uses his considerable knowledge and experience to place architects with practices in NYC.

Jessica Miller's career in design and construction started at the young age of ten in Brooklyn, connecting LEGO blocks and erector sets. She holds a Master of Science in Construction Project Management specializing in Executive Operations from New York University and a Bachelor of Science in Material Science Engineering from Lehigh University. Miller began working at Skanska USA Civil in 2003 as a field engineer. She has been involved in nearly all facets of the infrastructure project development process. Her project experience ranges from design and construction of water retention and distribution systems in rural Cambodia to managing operations on mega municipal infrastructure projects in New York City and Washington DC, such as MTA Fulton Transit Hub, NYCDEP Newtown Creek and Croton Filtration water plants and DC Water’s First Street Tunnel CSO.

About TORCH Mentorship: 
The TORCH Mentorship program partners emerging professionals and AIA Fellows over the course of one year to share personal strategies and paths to success in the architecture profession. TORCH includes public panel discussions plus one-to-one mentor matching for a longer term discussion. Learn more here.

This event is offered in person and virtually; COVID-19 vaccinations and face masks are strongly encouraged for all visitors. Read our full Health and Safety Protocol here.

If you register for a virtual ticket, you will receive an email with a Zoom link to access the program.