“A Spotlight on Women in The AEC Industry Part 2” is a professional profile and interview roundup published for International Women’s Day on March 8, 2024. Edited by Lindsay Lewis for Building Enclosure, it focuses on women’s routes into architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), the barriers they have encountered, and the practical encouragement they offer to people entering the field.
The feature is best read as a collection of experiences rather than a workforce report or technical guide. Its central lesson is that careers grow through technical learning, visible role models, mentors, supportive project teams and a willingness to create places that work for people with different needs.
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What Part 2 covers
The March 8, 2024 feature is the second part of a two-part spotlight series. Its interview format asks women in AEC to reflect on how they started, who influenced them, what mentorship looked like in practice and what advice they would give women entering the industry. Those prompts move the discussion beyond job titles. They invite readers to see how confidence, technical credibility, workplace culture and personal experience interact over a career.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchThe available publication record identifies the piece as a roundup of women leading in AEC. The original article page was not accessible when this account was prepared, so the complete Part 2 roster and every answer cannot be verified from the page itself. One participant, Stephanie Lafontaine, PE, LEED AP, is independently confirmed by an employer news item dated March 8, 2024. The other examples below come from linked Building Enclosure profiles in the wider spotlight series; they illustrate the series’ themes but should not be treated as a confirmed list of Part 2 interviewees.
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The questions that organize the spotlight
The publication’s recurring questions provide a useful way to understand what the series wants readers to consider:
- “How did you get started in the AEC Industry?” asks readers to look for the many routes into the profession rather than assuming a single pipeline.
- “Who have your role models been?” makes professional visibility part of the conversation. A role model can demonstrate a technical path, a leadership style or a way to handle obstacles.
- “Have you had any mentors throughout your career?” focuses attention on the relationships that turn information into practical guidance.
- “What advice would you give women just entering the industry?” shifts the feature from biography to action for the next generation.
Together, these questions frame advancement as both individual and structural. A person can build skills and seek opportunities, but teams, managers and institutions influence whether that effort is recognized and sustained.
Voices and themes in the wider spotlight series
The following synthesis uses the named profiles available from the series. The verification note matters: a profile’s existence and content support the theme, but do not prove that the same person or wording appeared on the inaccessible Part 2 page.
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|---|---|---|---|
| Betsy Turner | Electrical project manager, RMF Engineering | Being treated by contractors as a design equal; seeking supportive teams and accepting opportunities | Linked profile in the wider series; not confirmation of the Part 2 roster |
| Shaowen Chou | Associate principal, JCJ Architecture | Representation, mentors, continual learning and inclusive spaces | Linked profile in the wider series; quote below is from March 10, 2025 |
| Yanitza Brongers-Marrero | Housing practice leader, Moody Nolan | Using lived experience and multiple perspectives to consider safety, privacy, caregiving and belonging | Linked profile in the wider series; not confirmation of the Part 2 roster |
| Autumn Dean | Consultant, Copeland Building Enclosure Consulting | Women sharing knowledge and connecting building-enclosure work with sustainability | Linked profile in the wider series; not confirmation of the Part 2 roster |
| Stephanie Lafontaine, PE, LEED AP | Lead mechanical engineer and project manager | Participation in the 2024 International Women’s Day spotlight | Confirmed by RMF Engineering’s March 8, 2024 employer news item |
Career entry is not one prescribed route
AEC combines design disciplines, engineering specialties, construction management, consulting, planning and building operations. The interview prompt about getting started is therefore more useful than a single “ideal” biography. People may enter through a design education, an engineering program, field experience, an internship, a change from another technical occupation or an opportunity that reveals an unexpected specialty.
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For someone considering the industry, the practical implication is to identify the kind of problems they want to solve and then map the skills and credentials that support that work. An electrical project manager, a housing practice leader and a building-enclosure consultant do not perform the same daily tasks. Their examples show that AEC careers can be technical, managerial, design-led or advisory while still contributing to the same built environment.
Start with the work, then find the entry point
- Name the work that interests you. Decide whether you are drawn to systems, structures, materials, enclosure performance, spatial design, housing, project coordination or another part of the building process.
- Study the adjacent roles. Look at how designers, engineers, contractors and consultants collaborate on that type of project. Understanding the handoffs helps you choose training that will be useful to a real team.
- Build evidence of reliability. Coursework, supervised project work, drawings, calculations, site observations and clear documentation all show how you think and follow through.
- Ask for specific exposure. A conversation about a drawing review, field visit, coordination meeting or technical topic produces more actionable guidance than a general request to “learn about the industry.”
Turner’s account is especially relevant to the last step: she recalled a project where contractors treated her as a design equal. That experience demonstrates why technical preparation and team culture reinforce each other. Competence gives a professional a foundation; respectful collaboration allows that competence to be used.
Mentors and supportive teams change the learning curve
Mentorship appears in the spotlight as a practical relationship, not a ceremonial title. A mentor can explain an unfamiliar process, review a decision, describe an unwritten expectation or help a newer professional recognize an opportunity. The strongest arrangements are specific about what the learner needs and what the experienced person can realistically provide.
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What useful mentorship can include
- Reviewing a technical deliverable and explaining how to improve it.
- Describing how a project moves from design intent to procurement, construction and closeout.
- Preparing for a meeting in which a junior professional must present or defend a decision.
- Discussing credentials, specialty choices or the next responsibility to request.
- Offering candid feedback about communication, workload and team dynamics.
Support does not have to come from one formal mentor. A group of colleagues can provide different kinds of help: a technical reviewer, a field guide, a manager who sponsors opportunities and a peer who shares day-to-day knowledge. The series’ emphasis on supportive teams recognizes that inclusion is experienced in ordinary project interactions—who is heard, who receives context, whose work is credited and who is invited to take the next step.
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For managers, the implication is concrete. Assign meaningful responsibility with supervision, explain decisions instead of withholding context, and make introductions that give emerging professionals access to the conversations where work is shaped. For people entering AEC, Turner’s advice points to the other side of that equation: look for teams that respect your contribution and take opportunities that build your capability.
Representation affects design decisions
Shaowen Chou connects representation with the ability to imagine and deliver inclusive spaces. In a profile published March 10, 2025, she wrote: “Representation truly matters, and I believe it’s important for women to see themselves in various roles within the industry.” That sentence belongs to the 2025 profile, not to the March 8, 2024 Part 2 article.
The point is larger than visibility in a staff directory. Design and construction decisions affect safety, privacy, mobility, caregiving and a person’s sense of belonging. Yanitza Brongers-Marrero’s housing-focused perspective links lived experience and multiple viewpoints to those practical questions. A team that includes people who notice different risks can ask better questions before a plan becomes difficult or expensive to change.
Inclusive design as a project habit
- Ask who may be missing. Review the intended users, household arrangements, ages, abilities and daily routines represented in the brief.
- Test assumptions early. Discuss privacy, safety, circulation, supervision and caregiving needs before they are locked into a layout or specification.
- Invite relevant expertise. Include occupants, operators and specialists who can identify problems that a conventional review may overlook.
- Document the reason for decisions. A clear record helps a team evaluate trade-offs rather than treating one person’s preference as a universal requirement.
This approach does not claim that any individual can represent every user. It recognizes that a range of professional and lived perspectives improves the questions a project asks.
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Technical leadership includes sharing knowledge
Autumn Dean’s profile highlights women sharing knowledge and connecting building-enclosure work with sustainability. Enclosure decisions influence durability, energy performance, moisture control and the long-term behavior of a building. Sharing what has been learned—through reviews, mentoring, training or clear documentation—helps keep that expertise from remaining isolated with one person.
Knowledge-sharing is also a leadership practice for people who do not yet manage staff. Explaining a detail to a teammate, recording a lesson from a site condition or making a technical discussion accessible to a new colleague increases the team’s capacity. It creates more opportunities for others to contribute and makes quality less dependent on who happens to be present.
A practical knowledge-sharing routine
- After a design review or site issue, write down the condition, the decision and the reason for it.
- Separate facts observed in the field from assumptions that still need verification.
- Share the note with the people who will encounter a similar decision, not only with project leadership.
- Invite questions from less experienced colleagues and treat them as a check on whether the explanation is clear.
- Carry the lesson into the next project’s checklist, detail review or sustainability discussion.
This routine supports both professional development and project performance without implying that the spotlight profiles constitute a technical standard.
What the available record can—and cannot—establish
The feature documents professional experiences and advice. It does not provide a workforce-wide percentage of women in AEC in the material available for this article. Biographical statements about how long an individual has worked in the field are career details, not representation statistics. They should not be converted into a claim about the industry as a whole.
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Likewise, the named profiles cannot be used to reconstruct the complete Part 2 lineup because the main page was unavailable. The independent confirmation of Lafontaine’s participation establishes that she was featured and identifies her as a lead mechanical engineer and project manager, with PE and LEED AP credentials. It does not establish who else appeared or reproduce every answer.
These limits do not erase the value of the feature. They define the right use for it: a people-centered account of barriers, encouragement and professional practice. Readers seeking labor-market counts, current pay data or a comprehensive demographic picture need a separate, current dataset designed for those questions.
How readers can apply the spotlight’s advice
If you are entering AEC
Choose an area of work to investigate, find people who can explain its day-to-day reality, and ask for a small but real opportunity to practice. Keep a record of what you learn and request feedback on the next skill to develop. When evaluating employers or project teams, pay attention to whether junior staff receive context, credit and access to meaningful work.
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Make your guidance usable. Explain the reasoning behind a decision, introduce emerging colleagues to the right conversations and share mistakes as well as successful outcomes. Sponsorship—putting someone forward for responsibility or recognition—can complement mentorship and make opportunities more visible.
If you lead a project or firm
Examine how assignments are distributed, whose expertise is solicited and how disagreement is handled. Build review practices that welcome different perspectives, and connect inclusion to concrete project questions such as safety, privacy, caregiving, accessibility, durability and sustainability.
That is the enduring contribution of this International Women’s Day spotlight: it treats women in AEC not as a single category with one solution, but as professionals with distinct specialties and experiences whose participation strengthens the way teams learn, lead and design.
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