Mabel O. Wilson is the Nancy and George Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University, where she recently served as director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS) and co-directs the Global Africa Lab. Wilson is the founder of Studio&, an art, research, and design practice that recently collaborated on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. Her installation “(a)way station” is currently on exhibit at SFMoMA and the installation “Unknown, Unknown” is on view at the Biennale Architettura 2023 in Venice, Italy. She received her BS in architecture from the University of Virginia, M.Arch from Columbia University, and PhD in American Studies from New York University. Wilson is the author of Begin with the Past: Building the National African American Museum of History and Culture (Smithsonian, 2016) and Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums (California, 2012). She also co-edited Race and Modern Architecture: From the Enlightenment to Today (Pittsburgh, 2020) and was co-curator the exhibition “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America” at MoMA in 2021. Wilson’s work has received support from the Guggenheim Foundation, American Academy in Rome, Getty Research Institute, Graham Foundation, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, and MacDowell, among others.