CBE Alumna Mariam Issoufou Named 2025 Champion of the Earth by the United Nations

Since 2005, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has selected individuals by a global jury who champion climate action and sustainable policies and practices in their work. We are proud to announce that the UN has honored College of Built Environments alumna Mariam Issoufou with the 2025 Champion of the Earth Entrepreneurial Vision Award. This award honors individuals or organizations that are redefining their fields, demonstrating how environmental sustainability is compatible with financial profitability.

Issoufou is a Nigerian architect and founder and principal of Mariam Issoufou Architects — formerly atelier masomi — in Niamey, Niger, whose practice designs culturally, historically and climatically relevant solutions to spatial problems inherent to the developing world. Her work focuses on using traditional ways of building to help communities, particularly those experiencing high rates of poverty, adapt to a changing climate and extreme heat.

“We focus on technology as the only solution and the only metric of innovation but the answers are already with us,” says Issoufou. “We built our entire existence based on climate and there is really no reason that we wouldn’t be able to have that kind of approach in the future.”

Issoufou received her Masters degree in 2013 from the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Technology from Purdue University (2001) and a Master of Science in Computer Science from New York University (2004). Upon completion of her Masters, she worked with united4design along with UW Architecture Professor Elizabeth Golden and fellow UW Architecture alumna Yasaman Esmaili on the UNHabitat project that aimed to rehabilitate an urban village in Niamey. This project led to the firm’s first built project, the Niamey 2000 affordable middle class housing pilot project that uses appropriate materials and passive techniques to decrease energy consumption.