A committed environmentalist, Lin has consistently focused on environmental concerns, promoting sustainable building design in her architectural works, while making the environment the subject of her artworks. She is deeply committed to focusing attention back to the environment and to ask us to pay closer attention to the natural world.
Maya Lin received her Master of Architecture from Yale University in 1986, and has maintained a professional studio in New York City since then. She serves on the boards of the Bloomberg Foundation, Museum of Chinese in America and What is Missing? Foundation. She is an honorary board member of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former member of the Yale Corporation and the Energy Foundation. She is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Presidential Design Award, the Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture, a National Endowment for the Arts artist' award, the William A. Bernoudy Resident in Architecture fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, the Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an AIA Honor Award, the Finn Juhl Prize, and honorary doctorates from Yale, Harvard, Williams, and Smith College among others.
She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2005 was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. She has been profiled in magazines such as Time Magazine, The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker. In 1996 a documentary about her work, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Her book Boundaries, about her work and creative processes, is in its fifth printing with Simon & Schuster. Her architecture and artworks have consistently elicited praise and received awards from magazines and periodicals ranging from Time and Newsweek to Art in America and Architectural Record and The New York Times.