DIG’s LoriAnne Jones in NJIT Alumni Highlight

LoriAnne Jones, senior project manager, was recently interviewed by her alma mater, the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

In the interview, Jones discusses her days at NJIT, her accomplishments that lead her to being part of the 40-Under-40 Class of 2023 for Building Design + Construction Magazine and shares what initially ignited her curiosity about architecture and ultimately led her to become an integral part of DIG.

Growing up in general, I was always interested in a lot of hands-on things. We played with LEGO bricks growing up, did a lot of building projects and erector sets. In middle school and high school, I was part of a program called Odyssey of the Mind, which does a lot of engineering type projects. But then when I got into high school, I was also just interested in floor plans and homes. And I thought, “Okay, I want to do residential architecture.” I ended up taking an architectural drafting class in high school, and it kind of just went from there. My father develops a number of projects as an owner’s rep, so we got to go to construction sites as kids with him and see that, and in high school, in addition to doing the architecture elective, I got to work in an architecture office that kind of cemented the whole thing. 

At that point in time, I decided to go to school for architecture and was told that my grandmother had been an architect back in the day, so I didn’t know that growing up. But when my interest peaked in architecture, they told me “Oh, your grandmother worked in an architecture firm.” She started as a draft woman, and then ended up running the office in Guyana, my parents are from the West Indies. It just came together from there. 

Read the complete interview here.