UNM Professor Chris Cornelius inducted into National Academy

University of New Mexico architecture professor Chris Cornelius was honored with induction into the National Academy, the leading honorary society for visual arts and architecture in the United States.

"This is a first for the School of Architecture and Planning, and a first for UNM," Dean Robert González said. "We are continuously impressed with Professor Cornelius's many national accomplishments, and this is one deserving of the highest praise."

Cornelius was one of 27 members selected for the NA's 2025 class, which also celebrated the organization's 200^th year. Cornelius and the rest of the class were officially recognized in a ceremony at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.

"I found out in April, you have to be nominated by someone who is already in the academy all the academicians vote on the nominees, so I found out after that, but they didn't publicly announce the class until September," Cornelius said.

Cornelius, a faculty member at UNM in the School of Architecture and Planning for the past four years, is a citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, and was raised on the reservation before becoming a first-generation college student. A pathway that he said was part of his motivation to come to UNM.

"A big reason for me was that I felt the students were not so dissimilar from myself," Cornelius said. "I was a first-gen student, a student of color. That's really been amazing to be a part of (that journey). I think our students are unique in that they have life experience that is valuable and we in the school of architecture try and pull that out, to give them places to express that. It's been really great working with the students and with the faculty that also value that. I feel like the institution does too, I'm really happy at UNM."

Cornelius said that one of the things he enjoys the most about teaching is that in architecture, there isn't much difference in the curriculum from one school to another, so the work really comes from motivating students and helping them to figure out what specifically within architecture they want to pursue.

"I think that's what's unique about UNM students," Cornelius said. "They understand that there are things that they want to do with it, serve their communities or their families or society as a whole. These kinds of things are really important and they're hard to instill in students, you can't really teach that. So that's something we try and draw out so they feel like, oh this matters, who I am matters."

In addition to his work at UNM, Cornelius runs studio:indigenous, a firm that won Architect's Newspaper Best of Practice Award for Best Small Firm, Southwest, in 2023.

As part of his induction into the National Academy, Cornelius will donate a signature work that will be displayed alongside works from other members of his class starting sometime next year.

"It's a tremendous honor," Cornelius said. "I feel very fortunate to have received this recognition at my age and at this point in my career."