Chair, Nela De Zoysa Design Corporation
Nela de Zoysa, the Chair of “Women in Architecture & Design 2020”, is a practicing architect from Sri Lanka. She is an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a Fellow of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects, the Royal Institute of British Architects & the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.
She has the distinction of being the first Sri Lankan to win the ARCASIA Gold Medal in 2000 and also the First Woman in Sri Lanka to win the South Asian Architects Award in the same year. She won the Geoffrey Bawa Commendation Award for Excellence in Architecture in 2008. She received the Gold Award for Best International Woman Leadership from IFC and Women in Management in 2016 & the Zonta Woman of Achievement Award in the Category of Architecture in 1993.
Nationally, she has won 18 Awards from the SLIA under the categories of Excellence in Architecture, Merit, Honorable Mention and Color.
She is the first Sri Lankan to be elected to the RIBA Council, during which she initiated the RIBA Members Sri Lanka, of which she is the Chair since 2015 to date.
With 23 years of experience at ARCASIA, she served on its Council for 4 years.
She is the first Sri Lankan to be elected to the Strategic Council of the AIA and is the AIA Country Representative for Sri Lanka.
She has served in the SLIA Council for 6 year, currently as the Chair of the Board of Architectural Education, and previously as the assistant secretary.
