Degrees

Ph.D., Graduate School of Design, Harvard University (2024)
M.Sc., Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University (2016)
B.S., Cultural and Historic Preservation, Salve Regina University (2012) 

Bio

I am an urban historian, cultural heritage specialist, and visiting lecturer—but I have also been a guidebook author, public housing surveyor, field archaeologist, museum educator, and exhibition designer. My current research explores how different countries did (or did not) incorporate historic neighborhoods into postwar city plans, a process that often reflected whose homes, communities, and cultures were considered deserving of value. In taking a cultural history approach to the built environment, I aim to help students interrogate the value systems that underlie architecture, urban planning, and historic preservation practices.

Teaching and Research Interests

  • architectural preservation history, theory, policy, and methods
  • histories of architecture and cities
  • research methods for historians and design professionals
  • social movements in cultural preservation
  • landscape architecture and environmental conservation
  • histories and preservation of queer spaces
  • architecture, urban planning, and state power
  • transnational architecture and urban planning exchanges
  • Soviet cities, design, and media

Awards and Honors

Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Dissertation Research Grant (2021)

Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative Doctoral Fellowship (2021)

Canadian Centre for Architecture Doctoral Research Residency Programme (2020-2021)

American Research Institute of the South Caucasus Graduate Research Grant (2019-2020)

Open Society Foundation of Georgia Project Grant (2018)

Graham Foundation Individual Research Grant (2017-2018)

Columbia University Preservation Alumni Cleo & James Marston Fitch Writing Prize (2014)

Harriman Institute Civil Society Graduate Fellowship (2014)

Fulbright US Student Research Fellowship (2012-2013)

Links

Architectural Guide: Tbilisi (DOM Publishers, 2023)
The first comprehensive English-language field guide to architecture and urban development in Georgia's capital city, featuring essays from local experts.

PhD School, Neighborhood Heritage Tbilisi September 2023
An immersive research methods workshop for doctoral students working in postsocialist cities coordinated by German research consortium Cities-Building-Culture.  

Design Across the Iron Curtain: Modern Architecture in Soviet Georgia
2021 virtual lecture hosted by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz and the G. Chubinashvili National Research Centre for Georgian Art History and Heritage Preservation.

Indigenous Outsiders: Islamic Architecture of Adjara, Georgia
2018 bilingual Georgian-English exhibition and publication surveying endangered Ottoman mosques in Adjara, Georgia. Supported by the Graham Foundation and Open Society Foundation of Georgia.

Beyond the Ruin: Soviet Georgian Architecture in Context
2016 exhibition of Georgian photographer Vladimer Shioshvili's work documenting Soviet architecture in the Republic of Georgia.