Nmadili Okwumabua, MA

Nmadili Okwumabua  holds a MA in African and African American studies from Clark Atlanta University and a BSc from the University of Tennessee and Georgia State University in architecture and urban studies. She is a cultural designer, urbanist and educator in African architecture and community planning.

Nmadili's career as a built environment professional spans over 27 years, she is a licensed Realtor in the state of Georgia and Certified Property Manager with Broll CBRE South Africa.  She lives in Atlanta Georgia and Abuja Nigeria, where she offers international consultancy services in urban design, hospitality, and real estate asset management.

In 2021 Nmadili launched the Global Studio for African Centered Architecture (CPDI Africa GSACA), an academy for teaching this new pedagogy in architecture. Practitioners and students are awarded certificates post completion of intense research and scholarship led by distinguished, tenured built environment professionals.

In 2013, she established the Community Planning & Design Initiative, Africa, (CPDI Africa), a research-based, culture-inspired initiative created to develop new African architectural languages through design competition. 

In 2005, she founded Southern Sahara USA, an international consultancy specializing in the research and development of this new architecture where her research centered on the evolution of modern vernacular architecture in Nigeria.

She has presented research papers in over sixty international conferences, universities and professional associations. Her passion for design is rooted in a vision where communities in Africa and the Diaspora are developed with new architectural languages that preserve heritage, and are culturally and environmentally sustainable.