Landscape architect and sculptor, born in Athens, Ohio, USA. At age 21 as a graduate student at Yale's School of Architecture, she was the centre of a major controversy when her design for a memorial to those who died in Vietnam was chosen to be erected in Washington, DC. In 1990 her memorial to the civil-rights movement was dedicated in Montgomery, AL. She later opened her own design studio in New York.
She was born in Athens, Ohio and studied at Yale.
Lín, who now owns and operates Maya Lin Studios in New York City, went on to design other structures, including the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama (1989) and the Wave Field at the University of Michigan (1995).
In 1994 she was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision.
In 2000, Lin agreed to act as the artist and architect for the Confluence Project, a series of outdoor installations at historical points along the Columbia River and Snake River in the state of Washington.
In 2002, Lin was elected Alumni Fellow of the Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University, in an unusually public contest. David Lee, a local New Haven minister and graduate of the Yale Divinity School who was running on a platform to build ties to the community with the support of Yale's unionized employees. Lin was supported by Yale's President Richard Levin, other members of the Yale Corporation, and was the officially endorsed candidate of the Association of Yale Alumni.
In 2003, Lin served on the selection jury of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition. Some have attributed the trend toward minimalism and abstraction among the entrants, finalists, and current World Trade Center Memorial to Lin's presence on the Jury.
In 2005, Lin was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.
She is married to Daniel Wolf, and they have two young children.
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