Tiara Hughes made an early foray into the world of architecture after being accepted into a gifted arts program in second grade and gravitating toward buildings and drawings. After attending architecture school at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, she relocated to Chicago in 2016, hoping to find more diversity and create connections with other Black women in the field. She soon found that there was no easy way to meet these colleagues, and learned that fewer than 500 of the more than 100,000 licensed architects in the U.S. are Black women. That’s when she founded First 500, a now-international organization enabling aspiring and practicing Black female architects to connect with each other and access educational and professional resources that will help them advance their careers. Now a senior urban designer and project manager at SOM in Chicago, Hughes discusses forging connections both in and out of the office.
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