Sneha Patel

Education

Princeton University, M.Arch; Cornell University, B.Arch

Biography

Sneha Patel is the Executive Director of Communications and provides focused leadership in strategic communications and outreach. In this role, she provides direct support and oversight of Dean’s Executive Team messaging, while identifying opportunities for School leaders to advance the reputation of the A-School to broader university-wide, national, and international audiences. She works closely with the School’s advancement team to support priority fundraising goals and serve as a liaison for faculty to expand research dissemination through expanded media outlets. She provides guidance on the School’s overall visual identity, branding and messaging and leads the Communications team, which includes the Creative Director of Communications and graphic designer.

She serves as the School’s coordinator of public relations and works closely with the Dean and senior leadership as part of the Office of the Dean's Executive Team.

Sneha joined UVA School of Architecture as Creative Director of Communications in 2017. In this role, she oversaw the generation of design, content and strategy for the School’s digital platforms, social media outlets, print publications, and all forms of communication outreach. She provided oversight in the planning, coordination, production and publicity of School-wide public programs, including lectures, exhibitions, symposia and other events. Supervising and working with the Communication Team’s Graphic Designer and Social Media Coordinator, she was responsible for developing and sustaining a distinctive visual and brand identity for the School. This included substantially contributing to all creative services (including graphic design, photography, editorial/copywriting, publication, video, web and other digital assets) and assessing the effectiveness of the School’s outreach strategies through analytics and other marketing tools over time.

Prior to her role as Creative Director of Communications, she taught full-time for over ten years at Temple University's Tyler School of Art (Architecture Department) and James Madison University's Architectural Design Program. While teaching a wide range of architecture and design courses, she held curricular coordination roles in the areas of design foundations, drawing and visual media, thesis research development and architectural writing. Sneha is the co-editor of Performative Materials in Architecture and Design with Rashida Ng, serves as a managing editor of UVA School of Architecture's Next Cities publication series, and is a faculty advisor for the student-run journal, Lunch.

She counts the work and words of Corita Kent, Hanne Darboven, Jean-Francois Zevaco, April Greiman, Philip Beesley, Sverre Fehn and Bernd + Hilla Becher (among many others) as reasons to always be seeking more within creative practices.