 Welcome everyone to the PhD in Historic Preservation virtual open house. We're delighted that you could all join for this and really appreciative of the time that you've devoted to thinking about the program. We're super excited about your interests in the program. We are here as a faculty to tell you a little bit about the program. So I'm Jorge Otero Pailos. I'm the director of the program and I'm joined by Erica Avrami. Hello. Who's a member of the PhD faculty and Professor Lola Ben-Alon. Hello everyone. Hi. And also Sarah Grace Godwin who is our assistant director of the preservation program. And so now you're all joining from different places and so on. So many of you have reached out and we've had some emails back and forth. We're not gonna go around the room to introduce each other. We're gonna, we will have time for questions where we have an hour or two for this. And we want to just familiarize you with the program and familiarize you a little bit with us as faculty and make plenty of time for you to ask all the questions that you would like. Now, the first question I have for you is can you see my shared screen? Everybody can see that. Okay, fantastic. Well, that's already half the battle. So let us dive right in. The PhD program in historic preservation is cited, is at Columbia and some of you might have been in the school. Some of you have never been here but this is the main quadrangle of Columbia University and within that this big blue arrow points to Avery Hall and this is the center, let's say of the school but the school of architecture, planning and preservation is actually spread over four buildings. And so the preservation PhD is really housed in the Preservation Technology Lab which is in Sherma Horn Hall, it's the building next to it. And the Preservation Technology Lab serves teaching and advanced research on the preservation of building materials through a constantly evolving myriad of analog and digital technologies. And as part of its mission, the lab encourages awareness of and creative approaches to preservation technology as a means to bring about meaningful cultural, social, political and ecological change in the built environment. And so we achieve this through facilitating interdisciplinary doctoral and master's level research. We also host visiting scholars, often they're either working on their PhD or they're postdoctoral scholars or professors that come in and spend some time with us. And we promote dialogues between leading preservationists, architects, artists, engineers, creative technologists and scientists in the lab. The lab is also the repository for an extensive collection of building materials and fragments of historic buildings that are used by faculty and students in teaching and research. And it's a collection that is searchable online and that you can have access to as well. The PhD program in preservation was launched in 2017 and is oriented towards the training of future historic preservation scholars. It is the first of its kind in the United States. And so it aims to, excuse me, sorry about that. It aims to expand the discipline's range of intellectual engagement and also to cultivate new paradigms of scholarly research, experimental practice, global action, policy and communication. So the doctoral program underscores a historical understanding of the disciplines evolving challenges and purposes. And we want to promote theoretical speculation, design speculation, policy speculation, material speculation on alternative modes of practice suited to deal with the ethical, technical, aesthetic and social problems of our time. So we are looking for candidates who can engage with critical and scholarly culture and become the next leaders of the discipline. Candidates are expected to conduct independent research with support from the preservation's faculties, wide range of expertise. And in that preservation research is really something that we want to support. So we are looking for different, for independent projects. You are all going to each in your applications propose a project, but we also want to be very intentional about the kinds of projects that we are soliciting this year. We admit one student per year and this particular year, we're putting out a call for that kind of, for a particular kind of researcher we're gonna tell you a little bit more about it in a second. So part of the research that you would be doing is taking advantage of all of the different components of the research capacities of the school. A major part of it is Avery Library. So that is another site where our PhD students are engaging deeply with our archives and it has an incredible collection of both original drawings and objects and also limited edition historical books going back centuries. And also very importantly, one of the connections of the preservation PhD is with the Natural Materials Lab, which is directed by Professor Lola Ben-Alon who serves on the PhD and preservation committee. So I will let Professor Ben-Alon tell you a little bit more about the lab and its intersections with the Preservation Technology Lab as well. Thank you, Jorge. So a few words about the Natural Materials Lab that is joining in conversation and collaboration with the Historic Preservation Lab. The lab was founded in 2020, for years ago to investigate raw, geogenic, biogenic, earth-based, fiber-based materials, their life cycles, supply chains and policy, but also fabrication techniques, mix designs and upscale possibilities. There are several research projects and teaching courses that are affiliated with the Natural Materials Lab with the goal to craft new ways to imagine and invent socially equitable and ecologically sustainable futures. And the work here converges several fields, including material design, material sciences from microscale to structural scale, geology, geography and material, geographies and supply chains, architectural design, civil engineering, including structural and thermal behaviors of materials and assemblies and also art and experimental design. There are approximately between 10 to 15 research students, interns and assistants at the lab each term. And the goal and idea is to have the Natural Materials Lab as a resource with our material testing and fabrication possibilities as part of the Historic Preservation PhD program. Yes, and back to you. I think this is a really good segue for us to talk a little bit about how the rest of the faculty fits into this. So the PhD faculty includes all the people that you see on the screen right now. And each of us has a different area of expertise and focus. So obviously Lola, who directs the Natural Materials Lab, the Natural Materials Lab also is part of your research and that focus. So I want to turn the microphone over to Erica who talked a little bit about her work as well. Hello, everyone. I'm Erica Abrami. I've been part of the GSAP faculty now for almost 10 years and very excited that there's such an interest in the PhD program. My research really looks at Historic Preservation through the lens of social justice and climate adaptation. And so it involves more social science-based research looking at community-engaged methodologies for how we adapt and promote resilience within communities, but also looking at qualitative and some quantitative analyses of how we think about distributive justice, how questions of historic buildings and relationship to climate create benefits, as well as sometimes challenges for disparate communities and how we as preservationists can address these challenges and on the horizon through public policy. I think on the screen here, it talks about a program that I've been running the Urban Heritage Sustainability and Social Inclusion Initiative, which has produced a series of volumes around some of these issues that I've just been discussing. But my work also intersects a bit with Lola. I'm at the moment in Ghana, where I'm teaching a studio where we've traveled with students to Ghana focused on earthen architecture. And we're looking at the role of this traditional and ubiquitous form of construction material and the ways in which systems of colonization, religious transfer and devaluing of earthen architecture has affected the ability for people to transmit this constructive culture across generations. So in that sense, my social science interests and my climate interests also intersect around earthen architecture. Right, thank you, Erica. And I can tell you a little bit about my work as well. So I was trained as an architect and a historian and I practice in preservation and experimental preservation, where I take artistic methodologies and technologies to really critically inquire about the aspects of preservation that might be overlooked by the larger, let's say institutional established authorized frameworks in the field. So very much as you've seen in the rest of the faculty, the critical approach that we each take varies differently depending on our methodologies, but they're all very complimentary. And in my practice, you know, I tend to be very hands-on, but also through the hands-on and design aspect of working on particular sites, trying to develop that process as an inquiry that raises questions that then can be leading to larger scholarly and more traditional archival, historical, theoretical research. So really bringing together theory and practice that way through a critical engagement and hands-on engagement with materials and materiality, with constituencies and communities that are associated with those materialities, because every site has a community that is related to it. So working very closely with the stakeholders and the stewards of sites to carry out that work of experimental preservation. Other members of our faculty that are not here today are Mabel Wilson and Lucia Ale. Mabel Wilson is an architect and a historian who leads the African and American African Diaspora Studies and is director of the Institute of Research in African American Studies. She also co-directs the Global Africa Lab. She has an active practice where she has also worked on memorials like the UVA Memorial to Enslaved People. She's also has an active installation practice where she currently has an installation at the Venice Art Biennial. She is also a scholar and has been writing actively on African American experience and how it is spatialized through architecture and has been, especially in the 19th and 20th century. And so very critically engaged in questions of memory and heritage through that lens. Lucia Ale is a historian and she is the director of the Buell Center for American Architecture. She is an expert on the history of international preservation institutions such as UNESCO and wrote a book called Designs of Destruction. So she comes at it more from a historical lens and unpacking the various intersections between the building of heritage institutions and various geopolitical realities especially of the post-war but also she gets into the interwar period as well. So that's to give you a sense of the faculty in the program, in the preservation program but at Columbia we also have a much larger PhD faculty that intersect in various ways with the work that our students in preservation do. So just to give you a very quick overview, we can talk about each of these people separately if you have questions. And then of course there's a very large historic preservation faculty that works with our students that works in the lab, some of them do and some of them are not working in the lab but with whom you will have also a conversation. They're also at Columbia various research centers and institutes and we certainly encourage you to look into these as you prepare your application because we are going to want to know what you wanna work on and who you would think might help you in that research best and what resources we have at Columbia that would help you carry that research out and these institutes and centers are certainly part of the capacity of the university to help you. Obviously we talked about the preservation technology in the natural materials labs as really the anchor points for that research. So we're gonna go into the outline of the program real quick. It is a fully funded program. So the program, you get a stipend, you get a, you get tuition exemption so you get paid essentially to come and work on that research here. The program is a five-year program of which the first two years are spent really developing your project, taking classes. You will be taking a preservation PhD colloquium once a year in those two years plus other doctoral research colloquia and seminars at GSAP. Your third year is a year that is spent on, and I don't know if I remember. Yeah, your third year is a year where you're gonna be taking the qualifying exam. So these are the exams that basically certify that you've taken all the requirements and that you have a command of the discipline and there's a major and a minor exam. And then in that third year as well, you present your dissertation proposal, your official dissertation proposal. Then over the following two years, you write and execute that dissertation. So that's the five years. So all this to say that we fully expect that you're coming in with a dissertation proposal now that is going to change after the two years you spend in our school and that on that third year, you're really going to fully flesh out what you try to do. So you can in your proposal, as you write your proposal for admission, you can say that you might see this research developing in this or that direction in relationship to this or that lab or institutional center or faculty member. We encourage you to identify what faculty members you would be interested to work with. And your advisor should come from the PhD and preservation faculty, but you don't have to choose an advisor until that third year. So you can work with everyone in the program and then at that third year, you're going to choose the advisor. These are just some of the general requirements. After that third year, you pass those exams, you get the master and fill master philosophy that allows you that makes you all but dissertation. That's when you go to those two final years of the program and there's also a language requirement. This is because many people are working internationally and there is that you have to have one extra language apart from English. So now that we've covered the requirements and we've covered the length of the program, we wanna tell you a little bit more about the kind of research proposals that we are encouraging this year. So all candidates have to have a background in historic preservation. So either a master's in historic preservation or have related knowledge for a number of years, either in the field or an academia that qualifies them as having a background in historic preservation. So that's number one, that's very important for everyone to consider that. And secondly, we again have one position and we are very intentional about the kind of research that we encourage every year. But that doesn't mean that if your research falls out of that, you cannot apply. You may also apply with a, let's say, different dissertation proposal, but just for you to be aware that this is what we're looking for this year and what we are really seeking in a PhD candidate. And so I'm gonna turn it over to Professor Ben-Alan to tell you a little bit more about that. Yeah, thank you Jorge. So this year, the PhD in Historic Preservation, at GSAP is especially seeking candidates who can propose a project that bridges experimental preservation technologies and material design research to develop a dissertation as a total project that addresses pressing contemporary environmental and social issues and challenges. We especially seek candidates who will utilize different methodologies from the range of facilities. We have from the fields of conservation, art, architecture, science and technology. Candidates will have the opportunity here to cultivate a scholarly dialogue across history and theory of preservation technology, but also building physics and social sciences. As you heard of all of the backgrounds of the professors who will be part of the program. A deep focus on natural, low-carbon and bio-based materials like earth, stone, et cetera, is highly desirable this year. And the research topic will ideally not only address environmental urgencies in the face of climate change, but will also critically interrogate societal impacts related to marginalized communities, resource scarcity and land use. We hope that the candidate will take advantage of access to a wide range of scholarly resources within and outside GSAP, including research faculty and facilities. Specifically, the preservation technology lab and the natural materials lab will provide valuable opportunities for hands on experience and access to testing tools for various materials, scales and experimental setups. This would include conducting research experiments and developing installations and demonstrations ranging from micro-scale to macro and building scales. Lastly, the ideal candidate for this program should, especially this year, have a background in preservation and proficiency in academic writing, conducting experimental setups and a solid understanding of how to integrate historical research with a critical perspective on fabrication and preservation. The program highly encourages and supports research collaborations with schools from other institutions, as Jorge showed in the slide with the different labs, centers and facilities in and outside GSAP. And we also encourage active participation in international conferences and workshops, of course. So these are the main points that we were hoping to emphasize this year for candidates who are interested in applying. Thank you, Lola. So why don't we turn it over to questions? So from those of you that are in attendance, it's a lot we just put on the table. So please go ahead, yeah. You can either just raise your hand with a Zoom or you can just jump right in. Hello. Oh, sorry. You should go, Kaya. Sorry. Thank you. My name is Kaya Kerner. It's very nice to be here. It's very nice to hear about the program. I've been following this program for a while, the work of Jorge, and it's really nice to hear work being done kind of in relation to materiality. I guess I'm curious if you could just summarize that once again. So it's really having to do with like prototyping, biomaterials and social aspects, the project focus. I can answer that, Jorge. So the project that proposed may range from different scales, geographies, localities and materials. Prosotypes can certainly part of an experimental setup and it can be offered in a range of scales. And I think what would be really interesting for us is to see how such prototypes or suggestions for prototypes can be contextualized within an argument or a context study or a certain topic that may include several case studies, of course, and then culminated through a combination of material prototyping and preservation and experimental preservation and can even conclude in a certain project or hands-on project or installation or integration with the community or a series of demonstrations. So it's very open. Thank you. So to add to that a little bit, clearly we want you to take advantage of the resources of the Preservation Technology Lab, the Natural Materials Lab and to think through how you use the materials through how you're going to engage with preservation through those resources and thinking about the design process of the design of materials, materials that are to be used for preservation as an inquiry, not simply as solving a problem but as a method of unpacking of opening up critical questions in the discipline of preservation. So part of what we're looking for when we read your applications is a sense that you understand the discourse of preservation. What is your position within the preservation field? How do you situate yourself in the whole of the preservation enterprise? That is a major part of what we're looking for. And then how is your intended engagement with materials and materiality a way of fully, more fully articulating and inquiring into what you feel is relevant and important and urgent in the field and what is missing from the field because a dissertation is a contribution to the field. So you need to also articulate to some degree why would you want to do this? What is missing? How has this not been covered already? So having a sense that you understand what came before you and you have a position vis-à-vis that in a sense of the urgency of your contribution is very important for us. So you should definitely articulate that. And of course, we want to know why you are the person, what you've done so far, your experiences, how you came to this point, how you came to this question, where are you in your life right now that makes it such that you would really benefit from this, but the discipline also needs you to do this work, right? That's something that your statement really should flesh out. Erica, do you want to add to that? I just need to, I think that you said it well, Jorge. I mean, part of what we are looking for is that capacity to be a self-directed researcher because a PhD program really is about learning how to become a better researcher as well as an educator. And so being invested in avenues of inquiry that whether they're strictly material or bridging across the social sciences, experimental design, materiality, scientific research, et cetera, your capacity to really think innovatively and creatively toward those kinds of interrogations. Other questions? Hello, my name is Amani. I have a pretty logistical question. So given the self-directed nature of the program and the relatively low amount of very specific required coursework, if an applicant were already enrolled in a program at GSAP and they had relevant coursework and they were able to be in the program, is there a way that that relevant coursework could apply towards the credits of the program and perhaps have the program take less than five years or would that either ages be unlikely given how relevant the coursework would need to be or is that just not allowed and you would need to start from zero with your credits? Yeah, you would need to start from zero is the short answer. We expect that everyone has a master's degree and so everyone will have taken courses that are relevant to the program or even very close to the requirements of the program but the requirements of the PhD colloquium which are the core requirements and the number of credits for the coursework are really meant to give you a chance to take full advantage of the luxury that it is to take this time to develop your research. So we want that time to let these ideas develop and you should take advantage of that. So it's really something that we encourage you to to take advantage of really. Am I named? Does that answer your question? Yes, it does. Thank you. Are you at GCEP now? I am not. Oh, you're not, okay. Anna? Yeah, hi everyone and thank you for this introduction. Yeah, I'm Anna Yu and now I'm working as a new media artist and yeah, working a lot on the cultural heritage part and I have worked for two years as a fellow at the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard and I had a mark tool from Yale, so a little bit from my background and I want to see the potential focus of the PhD students that you are considering like to consider candidate who are interested to combine preservation, climate material, this art and media technology like other technologies besides material like this kind of photogram tree and putting all these things together and use art and media as a way for me to work. Lola, do you want to answer that? Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you, Anna. Of course, when we say materials and indicating the opportunities possible in the Preservation Technology Lab and the Natural Materials Lab, invite for hands-on, tactile work with materials in an experimental and empirical ways but it's not exclude, of course, other means of experimental preservation technologies that may include a range of other mediums including, of course, media, data and avenues towards other scientific inquiries of experimental preservation. So this can certainly be a really interesting and viable part of the proposal and then, again, going back to the three resources, the Avery Library as a place to argument your research and contextualize it in the history and theory of preservation technology and then the Preservation Technology Lab with the Material Library and the tools and equipment and the Natural Materials Lab with the strong emphasis on raw, low-carbon and material resiliency. Think about how these can be weaved together with your interest in media and art and design and definitely sounds like additional realms can be weaved within these. So, yeah. I'm gonna also share, for those of you that are here, I wanna share the page for our current PhD students. So you can see the kinds of projects that they've been working on and again, they're each very different. So that also gives you a sense of where the cohort and the people that will be in the program with you, your classmates, not classmates, but your cohort, yeah. Jorge, there's also a question in the chat. Oh, okay. Okay, so from Mohammed Hossain, could we research and work on urban heritage and urban historic preservation in this PhD program? I'd say yes, absolutely. And there could be ways in which you could examine the urban environment through a material lens and there's so many ways in which that could be articulated and we're very interested and also, I mean, that immediately raises the question of scaling. So when you're working on a particular research project about material design, questions of provenance, where are these materials coming from? How are these materials deployable in a contemporary setting at a large scale? Where would they be needed? And many of these questions of adapting to climate change of course intersect with these when you begin to think about urban scale. We encourage you to take a look at some of the work that Professor Avrami has done on this subject as well and the research initiatives that she's been leading and overlapping with these questions of the existing built environment. So these are new and innovative ways to think about the urban, the built environment that are not necessarily just limited to the heritage designation of a portion of that environment. Maybe Erika, you wanna chime in on this? Absolutely, so part of what we're looking at through a collaboration with the climate school, the existing built environment, Earth Network is how we oftentimes segregate the built environment as new construction and then this stuff called heritage or historic preservation. But there's this big gap in between of the existing built environment, lots of existing buildings, all of which and an era of climate change will need to be retrofitted and adapted in different ways. And communities may need to migrate as well. And so I think some of the things that Lola and I have talked about in the context of this Lola as part of this network is how do we look to the use of natural materials or low carbon materials oftentimes derived from vernacular or historic traditions and scale them up for retrofitting in low carbon ways. So that the embodied carbon involved in retrofitting buildings and adapting buildings is minimized. And so you could look at that at an individual kind of building level, you could look at that at a material level. But as Jorge said, we oftentimes still need to scale this up because just retrofitting or just adapting one building isn't going to get us to a place that meets the challenge of decarbonization. So thinking about ways in which we can implement both develop and implement practices across entire communities, for example, or phasing within communities or certain building typologies or within certain kinds of construction materials. All of those take us to a more systemic level that is represented or sort of a critical characteristic of the urban context that it represents a sort of systemic built environment question around historic preservation and its intersection with climate, as well as social justice. Okay. I see Mohammed Hussain has said thank you on the chat. So other questions. Okay, I see Jayeen. Thank you very much for your introduction. Gave me some basic information in addition to the information you presented, I'd like to know what the annual enrollment number is. So it is one. The annual enrollment number is one candidate. So we admit one person per year. You're welcome. Other questions. Feel free to just jump in. We have a couple more minutes. Why just one candidate that, well, that is what we have funding for. So we, these are fully funded positions. And so that's our, Erika, did you wanna jump in? I just wanted to add to that, that even though it's one candidate in this particular doctoral program, you are among other doctoral students within the graduate school of architecture and within the university writ large. And that there are opportunities to pursue inquiries beyond the architecture school. There are even opportunities to take courses within a network of universities associated, or in the geographic area of New York City. If there's a course that you're particularly interested in as a doctoral student, you're allowed to petition to take that course at NYU or at Rutgers. So while it's just one student, you have an opportunity to network with NEET and engage with lots of other doctoral students. Yeah, so you'll be in a real, it's a really amazing place because you have this very robust and very rich PhD research community at GSAP. I think it's quite unique, really, it's certainly in the United States, but I think everywhere that there is, that there's a very large cohort of PhD students and everybody really informs each other and participates in events together. And there's a very lively dialogue happening about the research in all of these various fields together at the PhD level. And of course, there's also the Italian Academy at Columbia University invites postdoctoral researchers in preservation every year. So these are senior figures in historic preservation that come in with whom our PhD students have dialogues or as a seminar that is held over there that our PhD students can participate in. So that's also part of all these institutions and centers and that we have at Columbia. And we're very fortunate to have a very robust preservation set of institutional capacities. And people, because ultimately it comes down to people. We'll take one last question from Anna. Could thesis be related to a specific real preservation project? And do you consider international topics involving other countries like China or the EU? Erica, do you want to take this? Could we, yeah. Certainly a dissertation could be associated with a specific site or a specific project. But what we want to encourage you to do is really be digging deeply into a set of research questions that allow you to contextualize a particular site within a broader theoretical inquiry and to allow a particular case, for example, to be generalizable in some way as a form of research. And so you can certainly focus on other countries. We have doctoral students right now who are looking at digital documentation histories in various parts of the world. Another who's looking at a post-disaster heritage recovery in various parts of the world. So I don't see that as an issue. But a project itself is not a dissertation, right? We want you to really be thinking about your dissertation as a substantive research effort. Thank you so much. Right. Well, I see Kaya has her hand up. Kaya, do you want to jump in real quick? Yes, I know you said of the last question, but I just wanted to just ask one more. In terms of having a background in historic preservation, if a candidate doesn't necessarily have, for example, a degree but has, I know you mentioned experience being kind of qualifying for the program. So for example, working on an excavation or having a background in heritage management, does that apply to that kind of requirement? Yes, that would, yeah. And that is spelled out in the page on the GSAPP web page on the PhD program that states the requirements for entry, the qualifications necessary for entry. So definitely if you have a previous degree in preservation or relevant experience in the field, then that qualifies you. Perfect, thank you. OK, well, we are very grateful that you all attended the virtual open house and very excited that you're interested in the PhD program. So thank you so much. We are available for questions as you developed your proposals and your applications. Please do reach out and let us know. We encourage you also, we didn't talk about it so much, but we encourage you to obtain good letters of recommendation from folks who have PhD backgrounds so they can speak to your ability as a PhD candidate. So consider that as you think about who you're going to ask to write letters of recommendation. But we're just really thrilled that you joined us and very excited to continue this conversation with each of you and to read your applications in due course. OK, well, thank you so much.