Emily Abruzzo is a Senior Critic at the Yale School of Architecture and a founding partner of Abruzzo Bodziak Architects (ABA), a New York and Connecticut-based practice working with public agencies, cultural institutions, and private clients on civic, cultural, and residential projects. ABA is currently overseeing construction of the Castle Hill Branch Library in the Bronx for the New York Public Library. The project reinterprets the civic presence and public openness associated with the Carnegie library tradition for a contemporary neighborhood branch.

ABA participates in the New York City Department of Design and Construction’s Design Excellence Program and contributes to the work of Design Advocates, reflecting the firm’s longstanding commitment to civic infrastructure and public space. The practice has received the Architectural League Prize, AIA New Practices New York, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard, Curbed’s Groundbreakers Award, multiple AIA design awards, and the AIA Arnold W. Brunner Grant for research and innovation. Wallpaper named ABA one of “the world’s best practices,” and The Architect’s Newspaper has included the firm in its “AN Interior Top 50” and “Twenty to Watch” lists.

ABA’s work has appeared in Architectural Record, Interior Design, Wired, Fast Company, FRAME, Domus, PIN–UP, Baumeister, and Cultured. It has been exhibited by the Japan Foundation, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Boston Society of Architects, and the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas, presented in partnership with the Audi Urban Future Initiative.

Abruzzo is a founding editor and publisher of the book series 306090 and a MacDowell Fellow. She received a BA from Columbia University and an MArch from Princeton University, where she also earned a Certificate in Media and Modernity and was a Fellow at the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies.

At Yale, Abruzzo has led design studios and seminars examining how architects can serve local communities and expand the definition of civic space, work that directly informs ABA’s public-sector practice. In 2017, graduating students selected her to receive the Professor King-lui Wu Teaching Award.