Yanel de Angel Salas, FAIA (2025)

As Principal and Managing Director of the Boston studio of Perkins&Will, Yanel leads with a spirit of empowerment that continuously pushes teams to be agents of change. A dedicated mentor, she finds joy in helping others elevate their own voice, become genuine leaders, and craft a meaningful career path.

Yanel has been instrumental in the growth of her firm’s global Higher Education practice. She has leveraged her expertise to spur significant initiatives such as ResilientSEE, a global platform of design professionals, private industry, and academia that offers comprehensive, pro-bono resilient planning and design to communities around the world. She served as Vice President of Practice for the Boston Society of Architects/AIA (BSA) Board, co-chaired the BSA Women in Design (WiD) Excellence Awards committee, co-founded the BSA WiD Mid-Career Mentorship committee and co-chaired the 2023 AIA Women’s Leadership Summit. She continues to be active at the BSA, co-chairs CREW Boston’s Housing and Community Development Committee, is on the planning committee for the Women Who Build Summit and is an active member of the National Latinx Architects Coalition.

Yanel has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Design from the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture, a master’s degree in Architecture 1 from the Syracuse University School of Architecture, and a master’s degree in Design from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design with a concentration in History and Theory of Architecture. She has taught at Syracuse University, Maryland Institute College of Art, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and Northeastern University.