Billie Tsien was born in Ithaca, New York. She received her undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from Yale University and her Master’s in Architecture from UCLA. Billie Tsien has worked with Tod Williams since 1977 and in 1986 they formed the partnership of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects in New York City.

The partnership’s compelling body of work includes the American Folk Art Museum in New York; the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California; Cranbrook Natatorium in Michigan; Skirkanich Hall at the University of Pennsylvania; a conference center at Bennington College; the Asia Society in Hong Kong; and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.; and a performing and visual arts center at the University of Chicago. Projects in construction include a dormitory at Haverford College; an information technology campus for Tata Consultancy Services in Mumbai, India; two new skating rinks for Brooklyn’s Prospect Park; the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University; and an addition to Savidge Library at the MacDowell Colony. Projects in design include an addition and renovation to the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College as well as the New United States Embassy Compound in Mexico City.

In addition to practicing, teaching, and lecturing, Tsien serves on the advisory council for the Yale School of Architecture, and is a Director of the Public Art Fund, the Architectural League of New York, and the American Academy of Rome, where she was in residence in 1999. In 2007, Tsien were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.