2026 Historic Preservation Student Spotlight

We are excited to bring you updates from the future preservationists of Georgia! Students in Historic Preservation and related fields have accomplished a lot this academic year and contributed to interesting projects across the state and the country! Many are also participating in internships in the preservation field this summer. We look forward to seeing how they progress in the preservation field in Georgia and the wider world in the years to come. 

Read more below about updates from the 2025-2026 academic year provided by programs across Georgia.

Preservation Academic Programs in Georgia

Graduate-level preservation degree programs are offered at Georgia State University, Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and the University of Georgia. SCAD offers an undergraduate BFA in Preservation Design. Preservation-focused courses are offered at Kennesaw State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia Southern University, Savannah Technical College, and the University of West Georgia.

Georgia State University

The following is a list of the graduating students graduating from the MHP program and their thesis titles. Congratulations Graduates!

• Julie Abraham , Documenting Change and Continuity: An Historic Resource Survey of East Cobb, Georgia
• Jessica Brooks, Restoring The Gaze: Black Women Photographers
• Vivian Cannella, Documenting Forty Oaks: Architectural and Historical Documentation Using Historic American Building Survey Guidelines
• Keandres Dyson, Preservation Beyond the Museum
• Ira Eidle, Documenting Neurodiversity History
• Sepideh Farahmand, Kodak Building: A Façade as a Storytelling Canvas
• Maya Henry, Sexy in Sepia: Black Burlesque, Sexuality, and Socialization in Media and Performance
• Azlyn Hernandez, Supercut History: Preservation Through Location, Location, Location
• Mackenzie Roach, Grain and Grit: Georgia Craft Brewing
• Kellea Roberson, Everlasting Resilience: Cobb Bethel Cemetery and its Restoration
• Ryan Smith, Sanford Wade Heritage House Historic Structure Report
• Rob Sturgess, Preserving Black History in Clarkston: The Clemsil Historic Resource Survey and StoryMap Project

University of Georgia

Fifteen students successfully completed the MHP degree at the University of Georgia in the last year. These students continue to demonstrate competence and creativity in safeguarding our cultural heritage. They include: 

A number of students turned their attention to sites of significance beyond our region. For example, Lexie Robinson examined the nexus of affordable housing and house museums at Strawberry Bank in Portsmouth, NH. Camie Russell looked into the history of sustainability and heritage in the planning for Olympic games throughout the US. Olivia Roger examined the preservation of kitchens in homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

A handful of students used Athens, Ga., as their case study: Nicholas Dietz turned his attention to the history of firefighting and the legacy of its built environment there, while Nadia Naji asked how using historic sites as gathering places affected attachment to place by looking at Creature Comforts brewery. Eli Bell was also interested in attachment to place, and examined how communities, including Athens, might bolster these attachments by preserving greenspace. 

Several students sought to shine light on particular places in the southeast: William Godat investigated Catholic sites and intangible cultural heritage in Georgia; Savanna Davis asked how interpretation might be bolstered at sacred mound sites in the Southeast; and Katie Mino proposed a new national heritage area encompassing the industrial sites of fall line cities. McKenna White asked why there are so few LGBTQ sites on the national register in the region. 

A number of students used interdisciplinary perspectives to inform their work. Brynn Hungerford examined the Appalachian Trail from a cultural landscape perspective. Abbi Byrd looked at preservation and news media to rethink pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans. 

Some students turned their attention to darker sites. Cro Osborne asked whether the haunted tours of Savannah could be improved through a set of best practices; Hayden Dutton asked about the future of Central State Hospital, using adaptive reuse frameworks developed for former mental health facilities in Europe; and Augustine Amam investigated heritage tourism at slave trading fortresses off the coast of West Africa.

Savannah College of Art and Design 

The following is a list of the graduating students from the MFA, MA, and BFA Preservation Design programs. Congratulations Graduates!

• Zhichun Ye, M.F.A Preservation Design
  • Thesis: From Sacred to Civic: Adaptive Reuse of a Secularized Church as a Museum and Cultural Platform
• Jesse Cantrell Sykes, M.A Preservation Design
  • Capstone: Architectural Evolution and Development Patterns, 1800-Present: A Neighborhood Characterization Study of the North Side of Murfreesboro’s Public Square 
• Britton Sherman, M.A Preservation Design
  • From Vacancy to Vitality: Resurrecting America’s Dead Malls Through Adaptive Reuse
• Olivia Kaplan, M.A Preservation Design
  • Capstone: Disrupted Cultural Landscapes: A Study of Monumentality and Lenni-Lenape Tribe
• Lily Atwood, M.A Preservation Design
  • Capstone: Preservation as a Means for Community Sustainability 
• Jarrett Fry, M.A Preservation Design
  • Capstone: Preserving Sacred Sound: Material and Acoustic Conservation Through Sensitive Audio Reinforcement in Historic Churches
• Sofia Zywiciel, B.F.A Preservation Design
  • Capstone: The Renege of Success in American Cities: The Case of St. Louis 
• Sydney Wilson, B.F.A Preservation Design
  • Capstone:  All the Worlds a Stage: Interpretation and Conservation of 20th-Century Theater Scenic Drops
• Lauren Withee,  B.F.A Preservation Design
  • Preserving Protestantism: The Preservation and Interpretation of 18th Century Christian Heritage 
• Haley Bechtold,  B.F.A Preservation Design
  • Capstone: Reusing Salvaged Building Materials: Preservation Through a Circular Economy
• Kailyn “Scooter” Serbinski,  B.F.A Preservation Design
  • Capstone: The Rebirth of the American Company Town: Adaptive Reuse of the Old Pelzer Mill 

Georgia Institute of Technology

We continue to have a number of students engaged in work around historic preservation, ranging from course-based projects to independent and grant-funded research. In the spring, the Intro to Historic Preservation course, led by Dr. Leslie Sharp and Jeff Jenson, completed an HSR for Atlanta's Herndon Home, and the Georgia Architecture seminar, led by Dr. Danielle Willkens, explored a range of projects, from website enhancements to HAER documentation and adaptive reuse proposals of individual railway cars for the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth. 

A few individual student highlights:

• PhD candidate Botao Li continues to work on innovative, non-destructive evaluation methods for conservation and preservation planning. He was an APT Student Scholar in 2025 and will hold this honor again for the 2026 annual conference. His work on the recently revived Odd Fellows Building in Atlanta was published in Frontiers' special issue on BIM in January 2026 (doi.org/10.3389/fbuil.2025.1720481)
• PhD student Yizhou Lin work explores how computational methods, including simulation, computer vision, and explainable AI, can support the interpretation of material conditions in historic buildings. I am developing a system for recognizing wood deterioration from images and providing interpretable explanations that connect visual evidence with preservation knowledge. This research aims to make technical expertise more accessible and support a more informed understanding of heritage environments. He continues work on the Interactive Wood Glossary project and will be completing a digital documentation project with the NPS at the Chickamauga and Chattanooga Battlefield this summer.
• Isabella (Ella) Baker (M.Arch ’27) attended FRAME Symposium 3 in Hobart, Australia, and presented her paper, “Reframing Ornament: A Close Inspection of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Picture Frames with Smartphone-Based Photogrammetry.” This project launched in the summer of 2023 when she was an undergraduate student in GT’s Architectonics in Greece and Italy summer study abroad. She has plans to continue her research with the High Museum, and potentially other sites abroad.
• Ben Ullrich (M.Arch ’26) is working with Willkens on a series of projects around the preservation and recognition of John Portman’s work, and Ullrich was part of the 3D scanning team for Entelechy I in January. 
• Jiayi Yi (BS Arch ’26) won GT’s Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award, largely due to her work on Atlanta’s Carnegie Library and an ongoing project for an interactive virtual tour of the now-demolished building.