Pacific Palisades, CA - Norma Merrick Sklarek, a celebrated African American architect who accomplished numerous firsts in the field. died Monday at her home in Pacific Palisades. She was 85.

Born to Trinidadian parents in Harlem, she attended Hunter College High School, then Barnard College and acquired her architecture degree in 1950 from Columbia University School of Architecture, where only one other female student was among the graduates. She was the first Black woman to be licensed as an architect in the United States, with certification in the state of New York in 1954 and in the state of California in 1962.

After receiving her degree, Sklarek was unable to find work at an architecture firm, so she took a job at the New York Department of Public Works. Later she spent four years at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. She became the first African American director of architecture at Gruen and Associates in Los Angeles in 1966, and she also worked with the Jon Jerde Partnership.

Sklarek became the first Black woman to be elected Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1980. In 1985, she became the first African American female architect to form her own architectural firm: Siegel, Sklarek, Diamond, which was the largest woman-owned and mostly woman-staffed architectural firm in the United States.

She is survived by her husband, Dr. Cornelius Welch, a son David Merrick Fairweather and three grandchildren.