Paula Wallace

Paula Wallace founded SCAD in Savannah, Georgia, in 1978. In the past 20 years as university president, she has led the university's expansion to locations in Atlanta, Hong Kong, and Lacoste, France, and pioneered SCAD eLearning. With more than 100 academic degree programs and 15,000 enrolled students, SCAD is the preeminent source of knowledge in every discipline it teaches and has prepared more than 45,000 alumni for creative professions worldwide.

Over the decades, Wallace has created internationally renowned fashion showcases and signature events, and is widely heralded as a global luminary of aesthetic and style. Under Wallace's direction, the award-winning SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film hosts premier fashion exhibitions, including the major retrospective Pierre Cardin: Pursuit of the Future. Wallace created the acclaimed signature event SCADstyle, which gathers top design minds from around the globe to share industry insight at SCAD Atlanta, Hong Kong, and Savannah. She is the executive producer of critically acclaimed SCAD film projects profiling designers such as Pierre Cardin (I am Thinking of Pierre Cardin and Pierre Cardin: Le Futur) and Oscar de la Renta (Ovation for Oscar).

Wallace is an honorary member of the AIA, a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council, a member of the Advisory Board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is a recipient of the ASID Nancy Vincent McClelland Merit Award, the Arthur Ross Award for Stewardship, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award, and a Roger Milliken Honorary AIA Legacy Award. Wallace has also been named among Blouin Artinfo's "Power List: High-Wattage Women of the Art World" and Condé Nast's "Daring 25." The French Embassy in the United States of America appointed Wallace a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, the Georgia Historical Society named her a Georgia Trustee, the City of Atlanta presented her with a Phoenix Award, the City of Savannah awarded her a key to the city, and DesignIntelligence named her to its "30 Most Admired Educators."