Barbara Klinkhammer, an accomplished scholar, professor, senior administrator, and successful leader in higher education, assumed the role of Dean at the College of Architecture and the Built Environment at Thomas Jefferson University in August 2012. Under her visionary leadership, the College of Architecture and the Built Environment significantly expanded its research centers and program offerings, including award-winning and nationally ranked programs, and doubled graduate enrollment. She is recognized as a thought leader in architecture and urban design and a women pioneer in the fields of architecture and construction.

Before joining Jefferson, Professor Klinkhammer held tenured positions at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT), where she served in various administrative capacities, including Associate Dean, Chair of Interior Design, and Chair of the Graduate Architecture Programs. Her international experience includes five years of teaching at the renowned Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany before her arrival in the United States in 1999.

As a dedicated researcher and scholar, Klinkhammer boasts a portfolio of successfully funded grant proposals, peer-reviewed publications, and design competition awards. A recognized expert on the 20th-century architect Le Corbusier, her scholarly pursuits include multiple peer-reviewed publications, journal articles and book chapters, as well as an upcoming book titled “After Purism: Le Corbusier and Color.”

Recently, Klinkhammer co-founded the Jefferson Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities, a groundbreaking initiative that spans multiple disciplines to drive research and education for sustainable urban environments. In 2023, she assumed the directorship of the newly established SMARTlab at Thomas Jefferson University an academic collective in partnership with University College Dublin created to ignite change by using the principles of Inclusive Design. Notably, she co-led the award-winning UT solar house project ‘Living Light’, sponsored by the US Department of Energy, and showcased at the 2011 Solardecathlon Competition on the National Mall in Washington.

At the national level, Barbara Klinkhammer has been elected as the incoming President (2024-2026) of the Architecture Research Center Consortium (ARCC). She also served as the chair of the national Leadership Committee of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). Her commitment to the field extends to several national boards, including the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) and the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH) Board of Directors. Additionally, she contributed as a co-editor for ARRIS, the journal of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH).

As an alumna of the HERS Bryn Mawr Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education (2010), Barbara Klinkhammer actively participates in shaping the future of higher education. She is a member of the Women’s Leadership Council of the Association of Collegiate Architecture Schools (ACSA).

Klinkhammer’s expertise lies in the contemporary professional design world, and she envisions the future of architecture and design education. She engages in contemporary architecture discourse, both through practice and participation in international design competitions. Her academic journey includes studying at the RWTH-Aachen, one of Germany’s leading research universities, where she earned the equivalent of combined bachelor’s and master’s degrees (Dipl.-Ing.) in architecture. As a licensed architect in Germany and Europe, she has practiced across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. She is the co-owner of Klinkhammer and Stach Architekten, an award-winning architectural practice in Germany.