Sheila O’Donnell has a degree in architecture from University College Dublin and an MA in Environmental Design from the Royal College of Art London. In 1988 she founded O’Donnell Tuomey in Dublin with John Tuomey. Until 2019 she taught at University College Dublin and she has taught and lectured widely internationally. She is an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (Hon.FAIA) and she was the joint recipiant with John Tuomey of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Brunner Prize. In 2019 she was named Architect of the Year at the Women in Architecture (WIA) Awards for her work on the Central European University in Budapest and was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.