Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was formed in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings; in 1939 they were joined by John O. Merrill. The firm opened their first branch in New York City in 1937, and has since expanded all over the world, with regional offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai and Dubai. It is based in Chicago, Illinois.
Shirley Ann Jackson, is an American physicist, and the eighteenth president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is the first African-American woman to have earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is also the second African-American woman in the United States to earn a doctorate in physics, and the first to be awarded the National Medal of Science.
There are several songs about Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute traditionally sung at special events.
Roger Duffy is an American architect, known for rigorous and unconventional approach to design. He works as a partner at the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. He has been a design partner in the New York office since 1995, and is a member of the American Institute of Architects and the League Circle of the Architectural League of New York.
Adrian D. Smith is an American architect who has designed many notable buildings, including the world's tallest structure, Burj Khalifa, as well as the building projected to surpass it, the Jeddah Tower, in Jeddah. He was the senior architect of some other recognizable buildings including Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago; Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai and Zifeng Tower in Nanjing.
Pearl River Tower is a 71-story, 309.6 m (1,016 ft), clean technology neofuturistic skyscraper at the junction of Jinsui Road/Zhujiang Avenue West, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, China. The tower's architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with Adrian D. Smith and Gordon Gill as architects. Ground broke on the tower on 8 September 2006 and construction was completed in March 2011. It is intended for office use and is partially occupied by the China National Tobacco Corporation.
Louis Skidmore was an American architect, co-founder of the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and recipient of the AIA Gold Medal.
Nathaniel Alexander Owings was an American architect, a founding partner of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which became one of the largest architectural firms in the United States and the world. Owings viewed skyscrapers as his firm's specialty. His reputation rested on his ability to be what he called "the catalyst," the person in his firm who ironed out differences among clients, contractors and planning commissions.
William Frazier Baker, also known as Bill Baker, is an American structural engineer known for engineering the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building/man-made structure. He is currently a structural engineering partner in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP (SOM).
Faye Duchin is an American Computer Scientist and Professor of Economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ("RPI"), where she was the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences from 1996 to 2002. She is active in the fields of ecological economics and industrial ecology and employs Input-Output Analysis in her work. Her faculty page at RPI states that she is "concerned with ways of achieving economic development while avoiding environmental disasters."
T. J. Gottesdiener is an architect and managing partner of the New York office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). A graduate of Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Gottesdiener joined SOM in 1980 and was made Partner in 1994. He lives with his wife in New York City; they have one son.
The RPI Engineers are composed of 21 teams representing Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in intercollegiate athletics, including men and women's basketball, cross country, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, swimming & diving, tennis, and track and field. Men's sports include baseball, football, and golf. Women's sports include field hockey, and softball. The Engineers compete in the NCAA Division III and are members of the Liberty League for all sports except ice hockey, which competes in NCAA Division I, as a member of ECAC Hockey.
The Rensselaer Technology Park is a technology park in North Greenbush, New York, USA operated by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. As of 2009 the park has over 70 tenants representing a diverse range of technologies and employing over 2,400. The park is located along the Hudson River approximately five miles south of the RPI campus.
Ross Wimer, FAIA is an American architect, known for integrating the rigor and logic of engineering into his designs. Until October 2013, he was a design director in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP. During his tenure at SOM from 1995-2013, he created architectural projects in over 20 cities on five continents. Mr. Wimer is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He currently leads AECOM's architecture practice in the Americas.
George J. Efstathiou, FAIA, RIBA is an American architect of Greek descent. George joined Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, LLP (SOM) in 1974, where he served as Managing Partner and later Consulting Partner in the Chicago office until 2016. He is currently leading the consulting practice of Efstathiou Consulting LLC which serves clients in the architecture, planning, interiors design as well as others in the real estate and corporate communities.
John Ogden Merrill Sr. was an American architect and structural engineer. He was chiefly responsible for the design and construction of the United States Air Force Academy campus and for the development of Oak Ridge, Tennessee where the atomic bomb was developed. He was a partner of the international architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
The history of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) spans nearly two hundred years beginning with its founding in 1824. RPI is the oldest continuously operating technological university in both the English-speaking world and the Americas. The Institute also holds the distinction of being the first to grant a civil engineering degree in the United States, in 1835. More recently, RPI also offered the first environmental engineering degree in the United States in 1961, and possibly the first ever undergraduate degree in video game design, in 2007.
Natalie Griffin de Blois was an American architect. She began her architectural career in 1944 and became known as a pioneer in the male-dominated world of architecture. She was a partner for many years in the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill" Her notable works include Pepsi building, Lever House, and the Union Carbide Building in New York City, the Equitable Building in Chicago, the low-rise portions of the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, and the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company Headquarters in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Several of de Blois' buildings are included in the tallest woman-designed buildings in the world. She later taught architecture at the University of Texas in the 1980s and 1990s.
