President Barack Obama has appointed Alex Krieger to be a member of the US Commission of Fine Arts, his firm said Monday.

Krieger is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and he is a founding principal of the architecture and urban design firm Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, which is now part of the firm NBBJ.

Established by an Act of Congress, the seven-person commission advises the federal government and the District of Columbia “on matters of design and aesthetics, as they affect the Federal interest and preserve the dignity of the nation’s capital.”