Our Team

Louisiana State University

Erica is a Partner at OPA Design Studio, where she helps lead the firm while remaining closely involved in the projects and client relationships that have shaped her career at OPA. Her experience spans hospitality and commercial architecture, with a particular strength in managing complex projects, coordinating teams, and keeping the many decisions behind a project moving in the right direction.

Since moving to Austin in 2014, Erica has built her career working with small architecture firms where being an architect often means wearing more than one hat. That experience made her equally comfortable thinking through a design problem, working through the details, managing a project team, or helping a client understand what comes next.

Erica believes every client, site, and project brings a different set of opportunities and challenges. She brings creativity and careful attention to detail to the design process, along with the organization and quality control needed to carry good ideas through documentation, permitting, and construction. As a Partner, she also plays an important role in shaping how OPA works, supporting the team, and maintaining the level of service clients expect as the studio continues to grow.

Elizabeth is the Office Manager at OPA Design Studio, overseeing much of the business operation that supports the studio and its project teams. Her role spans finance, HR, recruiting and onboarding, benefits, compliance, internal operations, technology and vendor coordination, strategic marketing, and companywide systems and processes.

Before joining OPA, Elizabeth spent nearly 20 years in marketing and brand strategy, working with large organizations and complex brands before moving from California to Austin. That background continues to shape how she approaches her role at OPA, with an eye toward how the firm operates internally, how it presents itself externally, and where there are opportunities to make both better.

On any given day, her work might include financial reporting and forecasting, payroll and benefits, recruiting and employee programs, improving a workflow, coordinating with outside partners, developing a marketing campaign, tracking business development efforts, or figuring out why something that should be simple has somehow become unnecessarily complicated.

As OPA grows, Elizabeth’s focus is making sure the business side of the studio grows with it. She works closely with leadership to create better visibility into the firm, strengthen the systems behind the work, support the team, and make sure OPA has the operational and marketing foundation to pursue what comes next.

Pratt Institute New York
University of Texas at San Antonio

Carole is OPA Design Studio’s Design Lead and a Project Manager, bringing a strong design perspective to the firm’s hospitality and commercial architecture. She works closely with clients and project teams to develop spaces that respond to the business, the site, and the people who will ultimately experience them, while helping guide design quality across the studio.

Before joining OPA, Carole worked with architecture and design firms in New York and San Antonio on retail, commercial, and residential projects. She studied at Pratt Institute, where her work included 3D modeling, digital fabrication, animation, and multimedia production. Her travels throughout Europe and the Middle East also exposed her to different approaches to architecture, materials, culture, and the relationship between buildings and place.

Today, Carole brings those influences to projects ranging from hospitality and commercial environments to adaptive reuse and experience driven spaces. She has a particular ability to translate a client’s ideas into a clear design direction and use visualization to help clients understand a space before it is built. As Design Lead, she also helps OPA explore ideas, challenge assumptions, and maintain a thoughtful design approach as projects move from early concepts into real places.

University of Louisiana – Lafayette

Duke is OPA Design Studio’s Technical Lead and a Project Manager, bringing extensive experience in commercial architecture, retail, production environments, and technically complex projects. At OPA, he helps lead projects from design through construction while also strengthening the technical standards, quality control, and documentation behind the studio’s work.

Before joining OPA, Duke spent seven years as a project manager with an architecture firm working alongside Whole Foods Market’s planning and design department on projects throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. That experience gave him a strong understanding of retail and production environments, regional design considerations, and the level of coordination required to deliver projects consistently across different locations and jurisdictions.

Duke brings that same attention to detail to OPA’s hospitality and commercial projects today. He believes understanding how a client operates and what they are trying to accomplish is essential to making good technical decisions. His role often means looking closely at constructability, building systems, documentation, code, and coordination while keeping the larger design intent intact. As Technical Lead, Duke also helps establish the standards and quality control practices that support OPA’s project teams and the buildings they ultimately deliver.

University of Texas at Austin

Todd is a Project Manager at OPA Design Studio with experience across hospitality, commercial, brewery, workplace, education, and residential architecture. Since joining OPA in 2018, he has taken on increasingly complex projects, guiding clients and project teams through design, documentation, permitting, consultant coordination, and construction.

Todd brings a practical perspective to architecture that comes from experience on both the design and construction sides of a project. Before joining OPA, his work included custom residential, office, and education projects, while his hands on construction experience includes building at an Austin area farm and constructing a tiny house of his own design.

That understanding of how things are actually put together continues to influence the way Todd approaches projects today. He considers the character of the site, the needs of the client, and the realities of construction together, working through details and coordination to carry the original design intent into the finished space.

University of Houston

Kimmie is a Project Designer at OPA Design Studio, working across hospitality, commercial, and experience driven projects from early design through documentation and construction. She brings a thoughtful approach to developing spaces around how they will be used, balancing the client’s vision with the practical decisions that turn an idea into a buildable project.

With a background rooted in commercial architecture, Kimmie has continued to expand her experience at OPA through projects that bring together design, operations, materials, and the guest experience. Her interest in sustainability also influences the way she thinks about material choices, building performance, and making responsible design decisions throughout the process.

Kimmie enjoys working through the details that give a project its own identity while making sure the space ultimately serves the people using it. She brings curiosity, careful attention, and a willingness to explore solutions to each project, helping the team move from initial concepts to well developed architectural design.

North Carolina State University

Yuzhou is a Project Designer at OPA Design Studio, working across hospitality and commercial architecture with a thoughtful, detail focused approach to design and project development. She considers how people will actually use a space while working through the technical requirements, coordination, and documentation needed to turn design ideas into buildable solutions.

Before joining OPA, Yuzhou worked primarily in healthcare architecture, an environment where user needs, technical requirements, coordination, and attention to detail are especially important. That experience continues to influence her work today, particularly when projects require careful planning and multiple systems to work together within a cohesive design.

At OPA, Yuzhou has expanded that foundation across a range of project types and brings a strong interest in sustainability, context, and architecture that responds to its surroundings. She enjoys working through complex design challenges, developing the details behind a project, and helping the team carry an idea from design into a well coordinated architectural solution.

Sydney is an Architectural Designer at OPA Design Studio, bringing experience in commercial and educational architecture along with a background in landscape design and hands on construction. She is particularly interested in how people experience a place from the moment they arrive, and how architecture can influence movement, interaction, and the way a space feels.

Sydney began her architectural career as a drafter while studying at Keene State College in New Hampshire. She later worked with an architecture firm in South Carolina on educational and commercial projects, collaborating with large client groups including schools and churches. That experience taught her how to listen to different perspectives and find design solutions that balance practical needs with the experience of the people using the space.

Her approach to design is also shaped by years spent working in landscaping and by founding DeepRoot Design Landscape, where she combined her architectural training with her knowledge of the natural environment. At OPA, Sydney brings those experiences together with particular attention to arrival, approach, and first impressions, considering not only how a building functions, but how people encounter and connect with it.

Rachel supports OPA Design Studio’s marketing efforts, helping shape how the firm shares its work, ideas, and expertise with the people and industries we serve. Her work includes social media, digital content, marketing communications, research, and other initiatives that help strengthen OPA’s visibility and connect the studio with new audiences.
Rachel studied economics at Trinity University, where she also held several editorial positions with the university newspaper. After graduating, she completed a data analytics program at the University of Texas at Austin before moving to Berlin, Germany, where she worked in data analytics within the music industry.
Her background in writing, editing, research, and analytics brings a useful combination of creative and analytical thinking to OPA’s marketing. She helps turn the projects, knowledge, and perspectives within the studio into content that communicates what OPA does, who we work with, and the thinking behind our work.