Rate My Professor Emilie Taylor Welty

Emilie Taylor Welty is the Favrot III Associate Professor of Architecture and Program Director for Architecture at the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment. She also serves as Design-Build Manager at the Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design. Welty earned a Master of Architecture from Tulane University in 2006, where she received the AIA Certificate of Merit and Thomas J. Lupo Award, and a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering Technology from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2003, graduating summa cum laude. Her career at Tulane began in 2006 at the Small Center, progressing through roles including Design Studio Manager, Senior Program Coordinator, Design Build Manager, and Assistant Director of Design Build. She joined the faculty as Adjunct Professor from 2007 to 2015 and has been Professor of Practice since 2015. As co-founder and principal of Colectivo, a New Orleans-based architecture firm since 2012, Welty integrates making into the design process, focusing on material investigations and affordability. She has led over thirty applied research projects and design-build studios that positively impact New Orleans neighborhoods through community partnerships.

Welty's research centers on design-build education, material explorations, expanding access to design, and public interest design. Key publications include “Public Interest Design, Pragmatism, and Potentials in a Postdiluvian City” with Ann Yoachim and Nick Jenisch in the Journal of Architectural Education (2020); “Design-Build Studio Outcomes; Researching Potential vs. Practice” with Ann Yoachim and Austin Hogans (ACSA/EAAE Teachers Conference, 2019); “Refining Process, Expanding Practice: Public Interest Design Fieldnotes from the South” (ACSA Annual Meeting, 2018); “How Do We Remember? Architects and Social Psychologists Team Up to Craft a Data-Driven Approach to the Design of Monuments in Public Spaces” with Tiffany Lin and Lisa Molix (ARCC Research Conference, 2022); and contributions to books such as Digital Fabrication and the Design Build Studio (2024) and Public Interest Design Education Guidebook (2018). Her awards include the Barbara E. Moely Service Learning Teaching Award (2017), Malcolm Heard Award for Excellence in Teaching (2017), AIA/ACSA National Practice and Leadership Award (2021), Collaborative Practice Award from ACSA, and recognition in Forbes 2025 America’s Best-in-State Residential Architects for Colectivo. Welty advances community-engaged scholarship, teaching students to address real-world issues as designers, makers, and citizens.