Melvin L. Mitchell has been a practicing architect in Washington, DC for 45 years. He is a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects, a past president of the DC Board of Architecture, and former director of the School of Architecture & Planning at Morgan State University in Baltimore. He was a professor at the University of the District of Columbia and Howard University and James E. Silcott Professor of Architecture at Howard University (2016–2018). His architecture degrees are from Howard University and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.