Born in 1955 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Thomas Hucker is a woodworker and furniture designer with an enviable educational pedigree and a thorough commitment to exploring his craft. Hucker gained recognition as a talented painter during high school, but he opted to pursue furniture making instead – attracted to the technical rigor of the work. He spent two years as an apprentice with Leonord Hilgner, a traditionally trained German cabinet maker, and he attended four summer sessions at Penland School of Crafts, where he learned from expert woodworkers including ACC Gold Medalist Sam Maloof and ACC Fellow Tage Frid. In 1976, he entered Boston University’s Program in Artisanry (Certificate of Mastery, 1980). There, Hucker worked closely with mentor Jere Osgood, another ACC Fellow. Hucker’s interest in Japanese aesthetics has long dovetailed his work in furniture; he took classes at the Urasenke School of Japanese Tea Ceremony while at Boston University, and he later received a Fulbright scholarship for a residency at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts. Interested in expanding the functional capacities of furniture, Hucker completed a series of pieces in collaboration with the Fragrance Foundation while he was enrolled at the Domus Academy in Italy. For the project, he embedded highly associative scents into the surfaces of his works, extending their sensory function beyond sight and touch. Hucker has exhibited and lectured widely, and he's represented in the collections of many museums, including the Cooper Hewitt Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In addition to his Fulbright-funded study abroad, he was honored with a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1983. He now maintains a studio in Hoboken, New Jersey, where he continues to design and fabricate furniture. Thomas Hucker was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 2018.