Michael A. Nieminen is an architect and planner in New York who was a Partner at Kliment Halsband Architect for 25 years. He has over 40 years of experience working with higher education clients such as University of Chicago, University of Massachusetts Amherst, The Rockefeller University, and Yale University. Nieminen is a national leader in a process-driven approach to design for the transformation of historic academic buildings and sites and frequently shares his techniques and strategies with a wide audience, including talks at Annual and North Atlantic Regional SCUP conferences and American Institute of Architects (AIA) National and New York conferences. He holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design from the University of Florida and a Master of Architecture from North Carolina State University School of Design. Nieminen is an member of the AIA College of Fellows. Michael was a member of the National AIA Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE) Leadership Group from 2018-2022 and served as the Chair in 2021. He is the 2023-2026 Chair of North Atlantic Region of the Society for College and University Planning