Sameera Chukkapalli Holmes is an Obama Leader and the founder and director of Needlab, a nonprofit organization that works to solve habitat and resilience problems in cities and rural areas. Needlab works with communities worldwide to develop human and environmental-centered architectural design solutions. Needlab's mission is to research, build, and advocate for dignity in design and selfsufficiency in communities. They have completed projects on four continents - directly impacting communities by working with and for them.
She is the youngest architect to participate in “Barcelona Design Week”, and one among the three selected architects to display sustainable housing solutions at the 1st UN-Habitat Assembly. She spends most of her time drafting human and environment-centered design solutions with communities around the world. Currently, she is driven toward achieving the UN Sustainable development Goals by making sustainable design solutions reachable to all and teaching at NYU and Pratt Institute in New York.
