Makie brings over 20 years of national and international design leadership to her professional practice and teaching. Her experience with complex, large-scale projects—combined with a multidisciplinary background and strong intercultural communication skills—supports effective collaboration with diverse clients, design teams, craftspeople, and communities across all project phases, from conceptual development to on-site construction supervision. She focuses on environmentally and socially responsible design approaches, ranging from regional master planning to human-scale interventions.

As both a practitioner and educator, she mentors emerging designers by exemplifying excellence in contemporary design practice. Since 2009, she has co-led Asian Urbanism seminars at the University of Washington and previously has served as full-time adjunct faculty at the University of Virginia.