About Frances Bronet
Frances Bronet is the 12th president of Pratt Institute. An educator and leader at the forefront of interdisciplinary learning, Bronet came to Pratt in 2018. International rankings, BIPOC enrollment, graduation rates, financial aid, and the endowment have increased during her tenure, and the Institute has invested in high-efficiency models to reduce the school’s energy and carbon usage. Under her leadership, Pratt has developed a presence at the Brooklyn Navy Yard through an inaugural research facility and MFA programming, became an inaugural partner of The New York Climate Exchange, and launched a public high school dedicated to design and social justice with Bank Street College of Education in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education.
Before coming to Pratt, Bronet served as senior vice president and provost at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. Previously, she served as acting provost at the University of Oregon; before that, she was the dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts (now the College of Design). Bronet began her academic career as a faculty member in the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She also held positions of associate dean of architecture, professor of architecture, and acting dean of the School. Bronet is past president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) as well as past chancellor for the ACSA College of Distinguished Professors. She is the co-founder of the ACSA Women’s Leadership Council.
For almost four decades, Bronet has been developing and publishing work on multidisciplinary design curricula connecting architecture, engineering, science, technology and society (humanities and social sciences), dance, and fine and electronic arts. She has received extensive funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the National Endowment for the Humanities/Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (NEH/FIPSE) for work on new pedagogical models using design for technical and/or interdisciplinary learning. Selected publications include “Quilting Space: Alternative Models for Architectural and Construction Practice,” in Research in Science and Technology Studies: Gender and Work; “Space-in-the-Making,” in Geographies of Dance; “Teaching the Design: Feminist Practice,” with Linda Layne, anthropologist, in Feminist Technologies; and “Product Design and Innovation: The Evolution of an Interdisciplinary Design Curriculum,” in International Journal for Engineering Education (with Gary Gabriele, et al).
Bronet installed the NEA-funded performance Don’t Leave Me with acclaimed choreographer Alito Alessi, his award-winning mixed-abilities company DanceAbility, University of Oregon faculty and dancers, and renowned Knight Professor and electronic musician Jeff Stolet—in a set of choreographed action installations examining the relationship between space and movement for the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Before that, Bronet’s series of funded interactive full-scale architecture, construction, and dance performance/installations (Beating a Path and SpillOut) with the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company received critical acclaim. Her first-year design studios have collaborated with Doug Varone, Terry Creach, Emmy Award-winner Branda Miller, the Berkshire Ballet, MacArthur recipient Elizabeth Streb, and the Sandra Burton Dance Company for these “Design in Movement” projects.
Bronet has been named a DesignIntelligence Most Admired Educator (twice) and an ACSA Distinguished Professor, and is past chancellor for the ACSA College of Distinguished Professors. She is a recipient of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching New York Professor of the Year and the William H. Wiley Distinguished Professor Award for excellence in teaching, research, service, and contributions to the university and community. She is the co-founder of the ACSA Women’s Leadership Council and continues to mentor and lecture on women in leadership nationally. She is one of the only presidents of a college who practiced as an architect, and before that, she was the only architecture provost of a Carnegie-classified research institution.
Since joining Pratt, Bronet has earned many notable accolades, including being named to the PoliticsNY 2022 Power Players in Education, City & State’s 2018 Brooklyn Power 50, the 2019 Brooklyn Power 100, the 2019 New York Women’s Power 100, and the 2020 New York Women’s Power 100 lists, and was honored with Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation’s Oculus Award (2019) for academic leadership supporting scholarship on women in architecture and engineering. She has been profiled in Design Milk, The Architect’s Newspaper, Interior Design, Madame Architect, authored an op-ed in Crain’s New York Business, and co-authored an opinion piece in Gotham Gazette. Bronet has been interviewed on public radio’s The Brian Lehrer Show, the Peabody Award-winning Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen, Person Place Thing with Randy Cohen, and Joanne Wilson’s Gotham Gal podcast, and is asked to present in international and national fora. She has served as a juror for the international CODAawards.
Underlining her commitment to bolstering New York City’s talent and workforce development to ensure an inclusive economic recovery is Bronet’s appointment to the Mayor’s Office of Talent and Workforce Development. Bronet is chair of the board of trustees of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), a member of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization advisory board, and co-chair of the Myrtle Avenue Business Improvement District.
As a thought leader, Bronet has been an invited speaker/panelist/contributor at City & State New York’s 2019 Education Summit, the UN Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization, the IDC Foundation Panel on Innovation at the Intersection of Building Design and Construction (2019), the Municipal Art Society, the Beverly Willis Foundation, the Society for College and University Planners (SCUP), and the Association for a Better New York Young Professionals (2019).
Bronet holds architecture and engineering professional degrees from McGill University; she received her graduate degree from Columbia University. She was licensed by the Quebec Ordre des Architectes, and has practiced in multiple award-winning offices in New York and Canada, including her own in Montreal.