Title: Associate Director
Organization: Skidmore, Ownings, and Merrill (SOM)
Location: Chicago, IL

Arathi Gowda is a team leader for SOM’s High Performance Design Group where she champions the environment at a multiplicity of scales, from Master Planning to Architecture and Interior Architecture. As an educator, she is committed to training the next generation of sustainable practitioners having taught coursework on sustainable urbanism at multiple universities. She is an advocate for collective climate action and is one of 20 Steering committee members for the US Architects Declare and the co-chair of AIA Chicago’s 2030 Commitment Working Group. Her civic commitments include the AIA Chicago Board of Directors, Global Philanthropy Partnership Board, USGBC IL Carbon Drawdown Advisory Board, and Roosevelt University’s Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate Advisory Board.

In 2016 she was honored with the individual Chapter Mission Award from Illinois Green and in 2019 was named as one of ten recipients of Green Building & Design’s Women in Sustainability Leadership Awards.