Emily McGowan is from Indiana, where she received her Bachelor of Science in architecture and Bachelor of Fine Arts in visual communications from Ball State University in 2011. She has backpacked through 30 countries studying designs effect on community well-being. Her interest in healthcare architecture moved her to Washington, D.C. where she worked on various hospital projects. While earning her Master’s of Architecture and Health from Clemson University, Emily and her classmate won a design competition sponsored by the Union of International Architect’s Public Health Group for a mobile isolation unit to help curb communicable disease outbreaks. Her graduate thesis explored architecture’s role in improving access to quality healthcare for medically under-served populations, and she received a fellowship to travel and implement her proposal for storefront primary care delivery in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In her free time, Emily enjoys sketching, painting and working as a surveyor on archaeological sites in Turkey.