Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an American architect and engineer. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career. She is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California.

Morgan was the first woman to be admitted to the architecture program at l'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the first female architect licensed in California. She designed many edifices for institutions serving women and girls, including a number of buildings for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) and Mills College.

In many of her structures, Morgan pioneered the aesthetic use of reinforced concrete, a material that proved to have superior seismic performance in the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes. She embraced the Arts and Crafts Movement and used various producers of California pottery to adorn her buildings. She sought to reconcile classical and Craftsman, scholarship and innovation, formalism and whimsy.

Julia Morgan was the first woman to receive the American Institute of Architects' highest award, the AIA Gold Medal, posthumously in 2014.

Morgan, the daughter of Charles Bill Morgan and Eliza Woodland Parmelee Morgan, was born in San Francisco on January 20, 1872, the second of five children. Her mother, Eliza, grew up as the indulged daughter of Albert O. Parmelee, a cotton trader and millionaire who financially supported the couple when they moved to San Francisco. Two years after their daughter's birth, the Morgans moved across San Francisco Bay to a home they had built in Oakland. Though the Morgans resided on the West Coast, Eliza still kept close ties with her family. Upon the birth of each Morgan child, the Parmelees sent funds for the family to travel by the transcontinental railroad so that the infant could be christened in the traditional Parmelee family church in New York.

A mining engineer from New England, Charles Morgan did not succeed in any of his business ventures, so the family relied heavily on the Parmelee fortune. In 1865, Charles had his first venture in California when he bought land in Santa Paula to unsuccessfully drill for oil. He later cofounded the Shasta Iron Company, which was dissolved in 1875 after limited income. In mid-1878, Eliza took the children to New York to live near the Parmelees for a year while Charles worked in San Francisco. In New York, Julia met her older cousin Lucy Thornton, who was married to successful architect Pierre LeBrun. After returning to Oakland, Julia kept in contact with LeBrun; he encouraged her to pursue a higher education. In New York, Julia had been ill with scarlet fever and was kept in bed for a few weeks. As a result of this illness, she was prone to ear infections throughout her adult life. Upon the death of Albert Parmelee in July 1880, Julia's grandmother moved into the Morgans' Oakland house, bringing with her the Parmelee wealth. Both Julia's mother and grandmother provided strong female role models, who because of their wealth had a strong degree of power in the Morgan household.

Morgan graduated from Oakland High School in 1890. She was dedicated to her education and a professional career in architecture. She enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied engineering, as there was no architectural program. At the university, she was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and was often the only woman in her math, science, and engineering courses. She attended Berkeley during a time of growth for women's involvement which took place between 1889 and 1891, when women were founding clubs and gaining access to new spaces and extracurriculars. Morgan helped to create a chapter of the YWCA during her time as an undergraduate student, which made it possible for women to use the gymnasium. She graduated in 1894 as the first woman with a B.S. degree in civil engineering at Berkeley with honors. After her graduation, Morgan became a member of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, now the American Association of University Women.

One of the engineering lecturers of her senior year was Bernard Maybeck, an architect who designed buildings that Morgan admired for their respect for the surrounding topography and environment. Maybeck mentored Morgan, along with her classmates Arthur Brown, Jr., Edward H. Bennett and Lewis P. Hobart, in architecture at his Berkeley home. He encouraged Morgan to continue her studies at the prestigious École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he had distinguished himself. After graduating from Berkeley, Morgan gained a year of work experience building with Maybeck, then traveled to Paris in 1896 to prepare for the Beaux-Arts entrance exam. The school had never before allowed a woman to study architecture, but in 1897 it opened its entry process to female applicants, largely because of pressure from a union of French women artists, whom Morgan characterized as "bohemians." In her time at the Beaux-Arts, Morgan interacted with members of the Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs, a group focused on advancing women in art. Morgan met with these women and was exposed to their feminist views; they discussed how to increase the influence of women in professional careers.