Nancy Chikaraishi AIA is a Professor of Architecture at the Hammons School of Architecture at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri.. She has been teaching at Drury since 2001. Prior to teaching she practiced architecture in Milwaukee and Chicago for 15 years. She received her undergraduate and Master of Architecture degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana. Chikaraishi was awarded First Alternate in the Paris Prize design competition, which allowed an extended year of travel in Japan and China. She has led multiple study abroad trips with students to Paris, Berlin, Spain, Portugal and Japan.
She co-led three design/build projects with students in Joplin, MO after the 2011 tornado and competed in the Solar Decathlon in 2015. Students designed and built a solar powered tornado resistant home, ShelteR3. The home was displayed in Irvine, California in October 2015.
A solo exhibition of her drawing research explored her parent’s experiences in the WWII Japanese-American Internment camps in Rohwer, Arkansas. This work was displayed at the Japanese-American Internment Museum in McGehee AR. She has lectured at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in November 2015. As a visual artist, she has collaborating with CORE Performance Company in Atlanta and Houston on a multi-media theatrical dance work commemorating the 70th anniversary of the closing of the Japanese American Internment camps.