M.A.H.P. Faculty

Melanie Lytle
Academic Director

Melanie Lytle has an MA in Historic Preservation (Goucher College ‘11) and a BA in History (California State University, Sacramento). She has been a preservation consultant for 15 years, guiding her government agency clients through the complex U.S. regulatory framework to protect, support, and revitalize built environments and cultural landscapes. She's also worked on the nonprofit and advocacy side of the field as the former executive director of the non-profit Maryland Association of Historic District Commissions and for an architectural easement organization. Since 2015, she's served as a board member at Restoration Works International. Through her service with the nonprofit in Nepal, India, and the US, she's discovered how meaningful heritage sustainability and community engagement work can be when a historic place becomes the place from which communities can cultivate their values and community members can address local challenges and design strategic innovations to make positive social change.

Her current research interest is the potential for altruism and empathy to guide preservationists toward a more people-focused practice. This interest is an outcome of living abroad in post-Apartheid South Africa in the mid-1990s and in France, international and domestic travel, and her nonprofit board service. She's learned that we often present preservation as a solution to social and cultural problems (lack of community, economic disinvestment, social injustice, globalization, climate change, etc.) but that these are “wicked problems,” problems that are difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete/contradictory knowledge, the number of people involved and their opinions, and the interconnectivity with other difficult problems. She's convinced preservationists must be part of the larger human-centered conversation, cooperate inter-disciplinarily, and banish siloed thinking if we are to have long-lasting influence.

Betsy H. Bradley

Betsy H. Bradley is experienced as a heritage preservation specialist, historian, and professor of history and historic preservation. Her professional and academic interests center on the critique of policy, practice, and the evolving nature of the preservation field. She keenly monitors the ever-changing historic preservation field in the United States.

Dr. Bradley has taught in the Goucher Historic Preservation program since 2007. Her courses include Introduction to Historic Preservation, Documentation, and Preservation Public Policy and she has directed over twenty thesis projects. She has also taught historic preservation at the University of St. Thomas Art History graduate program; Ursuline College’s undergraduate program, and in the Youngstown State University’s undergraduate and graduate departments. Betsy’s interest in industrial buildings resulted in her book, The Works: The Industrial Architecture of the United States (Oxford University Press, 1999). She has also written about how property owners addressed old dwellings prior to the formal historic preservation program in “Reviving Colonials and Reviving as Colonial” in Re-Creating the American Past: Essays on the Colonial Revival. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006).

Dr. Bradley has over twenty years of experience working with preservation policies and practices at the local level. She worked for several years for the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and has also served on the commissions of Shaker Heights, Ohio, Taylors Falls, Minnesota and Spokane, Washington, where she now resides. From 2011 to 2016, Bradley was the director of the historic preservation program in the City of St. Louis. She oversaw the review of thousands of building permits, and addressed the current topics of demolition review in a Legacy City, the design of new construction, the regulation of solar panels in historic districts and the integration of historic districts and form-based zoning. She has worked as a consultant in Minnesota and on the staff of the Wyoming State Historic Preservation office.

Robert Chiles

Robert Chiles is a historian of American life and society with a particular focus on the complexities of U.S. politics, culture, ethnicity, religion, labor, consumerism, and environment from the Gilded Age through the twentieth century. Dr. Chiles has taught a diverse array of courses for Goucher College, Loyola University Maryland, and the University of Maryland—where he won the 2023 Donna B. Hamilton Award for Teaching Excellence in General Education. He graduated summa cum laude from Towson University in 2004 with a Bachelor of Science in Music. In 2012 he received his PhD in History from the University of Maryland.

Since 2019, Dr. Chiles has served as co-editor of the journal New York History. He is also a member of the editorial board of The Hudson River Valley Review, a Research Associate in History with the New York State Museum, and a fellow of the New York Academy of History. He is the creator and host of the New York history interview program “Empire State Engagements.”

His articles have appeared in Environmental History, North Dakota History, New York History, and the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era; his essays have appeared in larger works from SUNY Press and Edinburgh University Press; and he regularly reviews books for numerous regional and national scholarly journals. His op-eds have appeared in the Washington Post, the Albany Times Union, Newsday, and the New York Daily News; and he has contributed to educational television programs including American Experience on PBS. Chiles’s first monograph, The Revolution of ’28: Al Smith, American Progressivism, and the Coming of the New Deal, was published in 2018 by Cornell University Press.

Mindy Gulden Crawford

Mindy Gulden Crawford has worked in the field of historic preservation for 40 years, currently as the Executive Director of Preservation Pennsylvania, the statewide nonprofit advocacy organization. Prior to that she served as the Executive Director of Historic York, Inc., a county-wide nonprofit in Pennsylvania. She has an MA in Historic Preservation (Goucher College ’98) and a BS in Business Administration (York College of Pennsylvania). She has served as adjunct faculty at Pennsylvania State University and York College of Pennsylvania since 2005. Her experience in historic preservation includes National Register nominations, Historic Preservation Tax Credit applications, environmental compliance, grant writing, fundraising and nonprofit management. 

She recently wrote her first book, Historic Pennsylvania: A Tour of the Top 100 National Landmarks (Globe Pequot, a division of Rowman and Littlefield) and is working on a second book on the market houses of Pennsylvania. 

She serves on the board of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions (NAPC), the National Preservation Partners Network (NPPN), Main Street Hanover (PA) and the Hanover (PA) Economic Development Corporation.

Timothy Frye

Timothy Frye, AICP, holds an M.S. in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.A. in Public Policy: Urban Studies from DePaul University. With over 20 years of experience in the field of historic preservation, he has been teaching in the Goucher Historic Preservation Program since 2017.

Since 2019, he has served as the Director of Special Projects and Strategic Planning at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). In this role, Mr. Frye oversees LPC's Environmental Review and Archeology Department, as well as manages the Historic Preservation Grant Program, which disburses Community Development Block Grant funds for façade restoration to not-for-profit organizations and income-eligible owners of buildings located in historic districts or are designated individual landmarks.

Prior to joining LPC, Mr. Frye was the Historic Preservation Officer for the City and County of San Francisco. During his tenure, he provided critical support to the Historic Preservation Commission and directed the Historic Preservation Program within the San Francisco Planning Department. In this capacity, Mr. Frye oversaw long-range planning, entitlement review, survey, and designation responsibilities for the City's Historic Preservation Program.

From 2013 to 2022, Mr. Frye also served as a Board member of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions (NAPC). His career in historic preservation began as a Preservation Planner with the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

Amy S. Millin

Trained as a clinical social worker, Amy Millin previously worked with children and youth at Jane Addams Hull House (Chicago) and Carson Valley School (Flourtown, PA). So began what has become a life journey of exploring what it means to be resilient, the role stories have in our lives, the strength of communities, and the power that results through partnerships. This journey led her to the M.A.C.S. program for a second MA degree. Her research explored the intersection of cultural health, equity, and the use of public space, for which she was recognized with the Harold Atwood Anderson Fund, the Julia Rogers Research Prize, and the Rory Turner Prize in Cultural Sustainability.

Amy currently works as a consultant providing development services and research for the National Council for the Traditional Arts, where she also supports the National and Legacy folk festivals. She is one of the founders and co-leaders of the Baltimore County Coalition of the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project where her work is centered on the ways that community programming creates opportunity for conversation. An ongoing focus in exploring the relationship between people, community, and place/space has led Amy to deepen her skills in the areas of digital storytelling and ethnography through additional training from the Vermont Folklife Center, StoryCenter, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

M.A. in Cultural Sustainability, Goucher College
M.S.W. in Family/Child. Welfare, University of Pennsylvania
B.A. in Sociology, Oberlin College

Paula Mohr

Paula Mohr is a nationally recognized architectural historian and preservationist based in Iowa, where she founded and operates a consulting practice. While at the State Historic Preservation Office, she administered one of the nation’s largest certified local government programs for 14 years. Dr. Mohr previously held positions at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the White House/Old Executive Office Building, and the National Park Service, where she was curator of the White House Storage Facility. From 1994 to 2000, Dr. Mohr was curator of the U.S. Treasury in Washington, where she was responsible for the preservation and interpretation of this National Historic Landmark and its collections.

Dr. Mohr’s Ph.D. in architectural history is from the University of Virginia, where she wrote her dissertation on architecture and sculpture in New York’s Central Park. She has written about the sacred qualities of Central Park’s landscape and buildings in American Sanctuary: Understanding Sacred Spaces (Indiana University Press, 2006). She also contributed several chapters on landscape design for Campus Beautiful: Shaping the Aesthetic Identity of Iowa State University. Her current research projects include the history and rehabilitation of newspaper buildings. She taught architectural history at the University of Virginia, Drake University and through an NEH-funded workshop on Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School in the Midwest.

Dr. Mohr serves on the boards of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions, the Vernacular Architecture Forum, Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area, and other preservation organizations.

Ph.D. in Architectural History, University of Virginia
M.A. in Museum Studies, Cooperstown Graduate Program (SUNY Oneonta)

Lori Durio Price

Lori Durio Price is a senior architectural historian currently located in St. Petersburg, Florida, with more than 22 years of professional experience in the cultural resources field. She currently serves as the Cultural Resources National Practice Lead for CH2M, an international consulting firm, where she leads a team of cultural resources practitioners across the country who perform environmental reviews; conduct and facilitate Section 106 and tribal consultation; handle agency coordination; develop mitigation strategies and draft Section 106 agreement documents; and perform cultural resources field surveys. Prior to her 15 years in the consulting field, she held positions as SHPO staff and as the Principal Architectural Historian for the City of New Orleans. She has worked as a liaison between FEMA and SHPO during disaster recovery from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, served as the Cultural Resources Program Lead for the SR 520 Bridge Replacement Program in Seattle to replace the world’s longest floating bridge, and drafted complex Programmatic Agreements for transportation, military, and redevelopment/divestment projects. Mrs. Price has practiced preservation advocacy and outreach at the local level for many years, currently as a member of the Board of Directors for her local preservation non-profit, St. Petersburg Preservation.

M.F.A. in Historic Preservation, Savannah College of Art and Design
B.A. in English and Political Science, Louisiana State University

Hyon Rah

Hyon Rah, LEED AP, ENV SP, an expert in sustainable built environment and water and energy risk mitigation, helps connect historic preservation to sustainability and resilience.

She has supported development projects of diverse scales, scopes, and locations to formulate and implement people centered and integrated strategies that reduce water and energy risks, and, along with that, community and financial threats. Communicating in five languages, she has worked in over 30 countries, navigating different cultural and regulatory landscapes.

Ms. Rah is principal and founder of RAH Solutions, a Washington-DC based consultancy. She is a board-appointed member of Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments' (MWCOG) Air & Climate Public Advisory Committee, and adjunct professor at the University of the District of Columbia’s College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES).

M.Sc., Water Management & Hydroinformatics, European Commission’s EuroAquae Programme, a consortium of: Newcastle University (UK), Polytech Nice Sophia Antipolis (FR), BTU-Cottbus (DE), and Barcelona Tech (ES
M.Arch, University of Michigan
B.A., Architectural Studies with minor in Japanese, University of Washington

Lauren Schiszik

In her position at the Baltimore City Department of Planning, Lauren Schiszik is involved in many facets of historic preservation planning, including architectural design review for landmarks and local historic districts, regulatory reviews, historical and architectural research, and archaeological assessments and reviews. She coordinates the Baltimore City Landmark designation program and the conservation program for Baltimore's historic monuments. She also works on departmental and inter-agency initiatives that integrate preservation into large-scale planning efforts that address issues such as climate resiliency and neighborhood stabilization and revitalization.    

Prior to her position with Baltimore City Department of Planning, she worked as a public archaeologist and cultural resources planner with Anne Arundel County's Lost Towns Project, and in the private sector as a cultural resource GIS specialist.

Ms. Schiszik is the Vice President of Friends of Maryland's Olmsted Parks and Landscapes, a volunteer-led non-profit organization. She has also served as adjunct faculty in the Public History Department at Stevenson University, and co-teaches courses in John Hopkins University's Odyssey Program. Ms. Schiszik has authored and presented papers on topics in historic preservation and archaeology.

M.H.P. in Historic Preservation, University of Maryland-College Park
B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology, Earlham College

Kennedy Smith

Kennedy Smith has been a leader in downtown economic development for 25 years. After serving as director of Charlottesville, Virginia’s downtown revitalization organization in the early 1980s, she joined the staff of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s National Main Street Center in 1985 and became its director in 1991, a position she held for 13 years. During Ms. Smith's tenure the Main Street program was recognized as one of the most successful economic development programs in the U.S., generating $18 billion in new investment and stimulating development of 226,000 new jobs and 56,000 new businesses and expanding to a nationwide network of almost 2,000 towns and cities, with additional programs abroad.

In 2004, Kennedy and several colleagues launched the Community Land Use and Economics (CLUE) Group, a private consulting firm that helps civic leaders gather and apply market information to create dynamic downtown economic development strategies. She has won numerous accolades for her work, including receiving a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University and being named one of Fast Company magazine’s first Fast 50 Champions of Innovation, recognizing creative thinkers whose sense of style and power of persuasion change what our world looks like and how our products perform. She has been featured in news media ranging from Business Week and The New York Times to CBS Sunday Morning and The Donohue Show. In addition to her work with the CLUE Group, she is a columnist for Planning Commissioners Journal.

Nikki Waters

Nikki Waters has been a professional archaeologist for over 30 years. She has a B.A. in History from SUNY Oswego in Oswego, New York and completed her M.A. in Anthropology from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She earned her M.A.H.P. from Goucher College in 2022. Nikki is passionate about blending her skills and experience as an anthropologist with her work as a preservationist. Her current research involves using a collaborative ethnography approach to develop ever better ways to bring a people-in-place centered focus to preservation practice.

Nikki began her professional career as a cultural resource staff archaeologist at Ball State University, where she completed numerous archaeological compliance and grant-funded investigations. She also served as a state and federal review archaeologist for the Indiana SHPO and as an instructor in introductory archaeology at Ball State University. Nikki was the senior staff archaeologist at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and was responsible for supervising students and completing cultural resource management projects throughout Indiana and Kentucky. In 2004, she returned to New York and opened her own private consultation firm. Since then, she has completed over 400 phase I and phase II projects in New York and Indiana.

Nikki expanded her career to include historic preservation in 2018 and was a member of a local preservation commission until 2024. In 2019 she partnered with a local preservation consultant and helped produce numerous compliance and grant-funded preservation projects in New York and Indiana, including several phase I historic resource surveys and National Register of Historic Places district nominations. Nikki recently accepted an invitation to join a national consulting firm and help them develop and grow their own cultural resource division. She will be closing her private firm to focus on this new opportunity in 2025.