Ashley Fernando

Born and raised in San Diego, Ashley has always been interested in design. Little Ashley would spend hours “cleaning” her room which included drawing new floor plans and using scaled cutouts of her furniture before completely rearranging everything. She first learned about architecture from her 8th grade engineering teacher at High Tech Chula Vista, a project-based learning school. Here Ashley designed and built things like toothpick bridges, overnight-shelters, solar ovens, hovercrafts and many more. In her junior year, she interned with Maxine Ward at the firm that designed her high school where she designed a gymnasium for her school and in her senior year, assisted in a school expansion design that was later completed by the same firm. Ashley attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she earned her Bachelor of Architecture and Architectural Engineering minor. Luckily the Covid-19 pandemic started just after she studied abroad in Italy, Switzerland and Japan. Although she enjoyed being in San Luis Obispo, Ashley desperately wanted to come back to San Diego for the weather, great Mexican food and because she missed her little kiddos. Almost every night, Ashley rushes home from work to teach judo at her family’s judo dojo, Migoto Judo Dojo. She coaches all age and rank levels from 3-year-olds to national and international competitors. Ashley also serves as the Second Vice President for the local black belt yudanshakai, Makoto, where she hosts events to grow and develop the sport of judo in Southern California and Mexico. If she isn’t working or doing judo, Ashley can be found snowboarding, paddleboarding, playing volleyball or soccer, running, wrestling, cruising in her 1969 VW bus or taking a much-needed nap with her three dogs.