Geraldine Carol Pontius was born on January 24, 1947, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, to parents Paul Edward and Doris Norma (née Hesselmeyer) Pontius. She studied mathematics at Barnard College, earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968, an education that informed her analytical and geometric approach to design. She continued her studies at the New York Studio of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture before obtaining a Master of Architecture from Columbia University in 1975. Her early academic projects, including the American University Library and Welfare Island Housing, demonstrated a strong command of site planning and axonometric projection that would shape her professional work.

Pontius has worked as an architect, artist, and lecturer. Early in her career, she frequently collaborated with performance artist Laurie Anderson, appearing in the 1974 film Dear Reader: How to Turn a Book into a Movie and the multimedia production United States, I–IV, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1983.

As an architect, she maintained a private practice while also working as a designer and draftsperson for major firms including I.M. Pei and Partners, RTKL Associates, and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. Her independent projects included residential renovations, loft conversions, and commercial interiors, noted for careful spatial sequencing and detailed construction documentation. While at I.M. Pei and Partners and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, she contributed to large institutional and urban projects through schematic design and development studies. At RTKL Associates, she served as lead architect for a South Street Office Tower (Commerce Place) in Baltimore, overseeing the development of what became the fourth tallest skyscraper in the city. She also contributed to numerous federal and civic courthouse projects in the 1990s, reflecting her engagement with public architecture, advanced building systems, and historically sensitive design.

Her work has been featured in exhibitions and publications including Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, Art in America, and Metropolis. In 2015, she collaborated with poet Sarah Smith on a submission to The Light Ekphrastic, which paired Smith’s poem with Pontius’s photographic work from the Oklahoma City National Memorial. She continues to work as a visual artist and architect, splitting her time between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.