Lisa Heschong is a Managing Principal of the Heschong Mahone Group, Inc. and an internationally recognized expert on daylighting, lighting energy use, and human factors in building design. As a researcher, Ms. Heschong led the groundbreaking research that found a correlation between the presence of daylight in classrooms and improved student performance, and completed three additional studies for the California Energy Commission Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program looking at how daylight and window characteristics influence human performance in offices, schools and retail buildings. As an author, Lisa wrote the classic Thermal Delight in Architecture (MIT Press), which continues to have a profound influence within architectural education to this day. Additionally, she worked with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories to synthesize their research into Residential Windows: A Guide to New Technologies and Energy Performance (WW Norton) and co-authored Advanced Lighting Guidelines, the CHPS Best Practices Manual, and the Skylighting Guidelines, three web-based publications. This award represents two major advances for the Haecker Award and ARCC. First, Ms. Heschong is the first woman to win this distinction and additionally, this is the first award recognizing the outstanding research work being conducted in practice. ARCC is delighted to have Lisa Heschong as our 2011 James Haecker Awardee for Distinguished Leadership in Architectural Research.