Born to an Estonian father and a German mother in northern Virginia, Linda Kiisk (1950-present) is an artist, architect, and educator specializing in sustainable design and historic preservation. Kiisk earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting & Sculpture from the College of William and Mary in 1979 and a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982. After graduation, she served as an architectural consultant for several firms in Pennsylvania, including Robert Couch, John Milner Associates, and Lymen Perry. In 1988, she began teaching at Mount Vernon College and led the Summer Study Abroad Program in Finland. In 1991, Kiisk founded Studio EESTI (Environmental Evolution Studio and Teaching Institute) to specialize in designs that teach and practice architecture. In 1994, Kiisk joined Colorado State University as a construction management professor. She cofounded CSU’s Institute of the Built Environment, a multidisciplinary sustainable design and construction initiative serving public and private American institutions. Additionally, Kiisk joined the University of Wyoming in 2000 as an architectural engineering professor and studied the design and construction techniques of the Kuna Indians as a Fulbright scholar in Panama in 2004.

Since then, Kiisk has served as a member to several professional associations, including the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Women in Architecture (WIA), Union Internationale Des Femmes Architectes (UIFA), and the National Architectural Accrediting Board. Kiisk published “20 on 20/20 Vision” as a collection on papers on diversity in design in 2003 and “When Shadows Vanish” as a self-help manual in how educators, students, and professionals see the world. She served as an architect for the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office in 2016. In her own words, this collection contains the “inside story of being a first-generation American, single parent, architect, and professor.”