Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, is a practicing architect in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and serves as the E. Fay Jones Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas where he served as Department Head from 2009 – 2015. He is the recipient of the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, the Institute’s highest honor, which recognizes those whose work has had an enduring impact on the theory and practice of architecture. Blackwell was named 2020 SEC Professor of The Year and among the “30 Most Admired Educators” by DesignIntelligence in 2015. Work produced in his professional office, Marlon Blackwell Architects, has received national and international recognition with significant publication in books, architectural journals and magazines and numerous design awards, including the 2016 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture. Marlon was a 2019 Resident Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, inducted into the 2018 National Academy of Design, and selected as a 2014 United States Artists Ford Fellow. He received the E. Fay Jones Gold Medal from the Arkansas AIA in 2017 and the 2012 Architecture Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A monograph of his early work, An Architecture of the Ozarks: The Works of Marlon Blackwell, was published in 2005 by Princeton Architectural Press, who will also publish a new monograph titled “Radical Practice” to be released in 2022.