Mary Ann Hay, IALD, LEED AP
Principal
Mary Ann Hay is a senior lighting-design professional and is the director of the architectural lighting design team at Syska Hennessy Group.
Her passion for lighting came while studying architecture at The Pennsylvania State University. Mary Ann quickly learned to appreciate the impact that lighting has on the overall experience of our built environment as well as our natural environment.
Thirty years ago, Mary Ann came to Syska and developed and nurtured a separate lighting-design practice within the firm. Today, as the director of that practice, she is driven by the energy, creative passion and commitment of the team to Syska’s clients and projects. Mary Ann says, “Syska has been a tremendous supporter of the lighting-design practice after understanding the benefit that this area of expertise provides to our clients.”
Her projects focus on the seamless integration of lighting within the architectural design. Mary Ann enjoys the collaboration process with the design team and client. This process allows full immersion into the market practice of the client, and the design concepts inspire her to work closely with the overall project team to make the conceptual inspiration and client’s requirements a successful reality. Mary Ann has experience in a wide range of projects for corporate interiors, higher education, healthcare, hospitality and government facilities, to name a few. Some of her notable clients include Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, the College Football Hall of Fame, Sesame Workshop, Cornell University, Weill Cornell Medical College, NewYork-Presbyterian and IBM.
She is an active member of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) and the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD). Her projects have won national awards, and she has been recognized in numerous publications for her work. A regular author in technical trade magazines, Mary Ann has also been an adjunct professor at NYU.