Faculty

Historic Preservation Faculty

Christine Henry, Associate Professor & Director, Center for Historic Preservation
B.A., University of William and Mary; M.Arch., Catholic University; M.H.P. & Ph.D., University of Maryland at College Park
Phone: 540-654-1313
e-mail: chenry5@umw.edu

Christine Henry worked for four years as a project coordinator on cultural resource surveys with the Washington DC Regional Office (WASO) of the National Park Service while working on her doctorate in Urban Planning at the University of Maryland. Prior to returning to school, Dr. Henry worked for over a decade as the Federal Preservation Officer at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, in addition to working with museums around the country to manage their collections and programming projects. Trained as both an architect and as a preservationist, Dr. Henry focuses her research on placemaking, the intersection of the built environment and community identity. She is particularly interested in issues of social justice and diversifying the communities who participate in preservation. Dr. Henry currently serves as the Director of the Center for Historic Preservation.

Daniel Hubbard, Associate Professor

A.B., Georgia State University; B.S., Georgia Institute of Technology; M.A., Middlebury College; M.Acct., Ph.D., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Phone: 540-654-1460

e-mail: dhubbard@umw.edu

Dan Hubbard is a registered certified public accountant who received a doctorate in accounting from Virginia Tech. Dr. Hubbard received the 2013 Mary W. Pinschmidt Award. The winner is selected by the graduating class as the faculty member “whom they will most likely remember as the one who had the greatest impact on their lives.” His popularity also is apparent by his inclusion in the Princeton Review’s 2012 list of “Best 300 Professors.” The publication, which featured seven UMW professors, recognized 300 challenging and inspiring teaching faculty from 122 public and private colleges.

Katherine Parker, Assistant Professor
B.A., University of South Carolina; Ph.D., University of Tennessee
Phone:
e-mail: kparker8@umw.edu

Katherine Parker joined the Department of Historic Preservation faculty in 2023. Her research focuses on the ways that moonshine is constructed in discursive spaces, such as popular media, social memory, and academic research, and in material places where moonshine distillation sites exist as archaeological resources. Her work examines the entangled influences of class, race, racism, gender, and heritage tourism on the political economy of moonshiners in the postbellum US. Her other research interests include critical heritage studies, archaeological ethics and practice, climate change and sustainability, and the applications of GIS and remote sensing technologies to understanding conflict and erasure in the built environment. Dr. Parker is an affiliated volunteer archaeologist with the Archaeology in the Community and Southeastern Archaeological Conference African American Historic Resources Project network, where she uses ground penetrating radar to support local community cemetery documentation projects.

Arch Lab website: https://umwarchaeologylab.com/archaeology-at-umw/

Andréa Livi Smith, Professor
A.B., Brown University; M.S., University of Vermont; Ph.D., University of Maryland at College Park
Phone: 540-654-1316
e-mail: alsmith@umw.edu

Andréa Livi Smith served as Director of the Center for Historic Preservation from 2009 to 2014, and as Department Chair from 2014 to 2018. Dr. Smith has worked on multiple grants relating to transportation in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. She has also conducted data collection and technical assistance for the federal Transportation Enhancements/Alternatives program. Trained as an urban planner as well as preservationist and architectural historian, Dr. Smith has focused her research on the intersection of urban design, transportation, and preservation. Her other interests include environmental psychology, funerary architecture, and the history and reuse of industrial resources.

Michael Spencer, Associate Professor & Prince B. Woodard Chair in Historic Preservation
B.A., University of Mary Washington; M.H.P., University of Kentucky
Phone: 540-654-1311
e-mail: mspen1bi@umw.edu

Michael Spencer served as the Director of the Center for Historic Preservation from 2014 to 2018, the UMW Campus Preservation Officer from 2010 until 2019 during which time he authored the campus Preservation Plan, and Department Chair from 2018-2022. Prof. Spencer is a preservationist with expertise in architectural conservation and building forensics. His research has focused on the use of nondestructive technologies to  investigate and assess historic structures and more recently the cultural heritage application of virtual and augmented reality.  Integration of scientific analysis and the increased understanding of historic trades has also been a focus of Prof. Spencer since coming to UMW in 2009. Currently, Prof. Spencer serves on the board of the Washington Heritage Museum’s, is a member of the Fredericksburg Memorials Commission, and Historic Architect (Sec 106 Review) for the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park as well as the Green Springs Historic District in Louisa County, Virginia.

Cristina Turdean, Associate Professor & Department Chair
B.S. & M.S., Polytechnic Institute of Cluj-Napoca (Romania); M.A., State University of New York at Oneonta; Ph.D., University of Delaware
Phone: 540-654-1310
e-mail: cturdean@umw.edu

Cristina Turdean serves as Chair of the Department of Historic Preservation and teaches a number of museum studies courses. In addition to these responsibilities Dr. Turdean also serves on the Museum Studies Minor Committee at the University. Since coming to the University of Mary Washington in 2011 Dr. Turdean has actively engaged her students in the local museum community by planning a number of exhibits, conducting collections management work, developing school programs, and writing grants for organizations like the George Washington Foundation, the Washington Heritage Museums, James Monroe Museum and Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center.