Posted on June 17, 2025
Post categories: Alumni & Partners Architecture Honors & Awards News
The College of Built Environments congratulates Betty R. Torrell, M.Arch ’81, on her selection as a 2025 Fulbright U.S. Scholar. The Fulbright Program, now in its 79th year, promotes international understanding through educational exchange in more than 140 countries.
Torrell is a licensed architect and associate professor at Morgan State University’s School of Architecture and Planning. She holds both a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in interior design from the University of Washington. She is also the founder of Torrell Architects in Seattle. In fall 2025, she will spend a semester at RISEBA University Faculty of Art and Design in Riga, Latvia. Her fellowship will focus on the design pedagogy of UW Professor Emerita Astra Zarina.
Her project, The Transformational Pedagogy of Astra Zarina: Identity, Agency and Cultural Context in Design Education, builds on her long-standing research. While in Riga, she will lead a design studio that centers student agency and cultural immersion. She will also teach a graduate seminar on material culture and its role in shaping the built environment.
Zarina was a trailblazing educator and the first woman to join the UW Department of Architecture faculty. She earned her M.Arch from MIT and received both the Rome Prize in Architecture and the UW Distinguished Teaching Award.
Her teaching emphasized cultural immersion, student agency and hands-on learning—approaches that shaped programs like Architecture in Rome and Italian Hilltowns, which she helped establish. She also founded the UW Rome Center and co-led preservation efforts in Civita di Bagnoregio.
Torrell, who studied and taught in Zarina’s Italy programs, now carries that legacy forward. Her Fulbright project builds on Zarina’s impact and highlights inclusive, culturally grounded approaches to design education.
In addition, Torrell will conduct field and archival research on Zarina’s early life in Latvia. Her goal is to understand how Zarina’s experience as a World War II refugee influenced her approach to teaching. The project will result in academic conference presentations and a forthcoming book chapter.
“Returning to Latvia to explore the influence of Zarina’s childhood and apply her pedagogy where her journey began is both professionally and personally profound,” said Torrell.
In 2025, she also received the Yale ASCEND Teaching Fellowship and a Morgan State faculty research award. Both support her ongoing study of Zarina’s legacy in Civita di Bagnoregio, Italy.