Expertise Summary

Expert in design diplomacy, world expos, documentary films, design innovation, building science.

Languages

• Mandarin

Mina Chow, FAIA, NCARB, is an award-winning interdisciplinary filmmaker, licensed architect, adjunct professor at the USC School of Architecture and a faculty fellow at the USC Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy. Through filmmaking, public scholarship and interdisciplinary teaching, she explores the connections between design and culture. Her writing on identity and cultural issues across media and architecture has appeared in The Architect’s Newspaper, including “Suspended in a Spectacle: Public Diplomacy at Expo 2020 Dubai”, “With the Media Burning and a Virus Raging, Should We Look to Architecture?” and “Delinquent in Dubai: We Need to Tell America’s Best Story in the Middle East”.

In 2021, Chow was elevated to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects for her interdisciplinary work and documentary filmmaking. Since 2018, she has served as a design history consultant for the U.S. Department of State Expo Unit. Her PBS documentary Face of a Nation: What Happened to the World’s Fair? continues to reach international audiences through coverage in TIME and Smithsonian Magazine, screenings on Emirates Airlines and presentation at the 2022 International Communication Association conference in Paris. A trailer and presentation link is also available. The film examines U.S. participation in overseas World Expos and its relationship to the country’s international image.

Chow is a nominating member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and has directed and produced films for the American Institute of Architects and the University of Southern California. In 2011, she created Brave New World, a pilot for the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs about innovative architecture. She also served on the award-winning U.S. Pavilion team, Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good, at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale.