Board of Directors

Trudi Sandmeier (Board President) is the Director of Graduate Programs in Heritage Conservation and an Associate Professor of Practice in Architecture at the University of Southern California. She co-founded and currently serves as president of the non-profit Will Rogers Ranch Foundation, as secretary of the Docomomo Southern California chapter, and as one of the organizers of the 2019 Preserving the Recent Past 3 conference. Her work centers on the conservation of the recent past and efforts to make visible the impact of underrepresented constituencies on the historic built environment.

Priya Jain, AIA, (Secretary) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University. An architect licensed in both the US and India, she has worked on the reuse and restoration of a diverse range of buildings, including Trinity Church in Boston, the Jewett Arts Center at Wellesley College, St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington DC, the Richardson-Olmsted Complex in Buffalo and Jaisalmer Fort, India. Her teaching and research focus on twentieth-century South Asian architectural history and preservation within a transnational context. Priya co-chairs the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Climate Change and Architectural History Affiliate Group, serves on the SAH Heritage Conservation Committee and is the Communications Lead of the SAH Women in Architecture Affiliate Group. She is Field Editor (Architecture) for the Getty Conservation Institute AATA Online (Abstracts of Conservation Literature) and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE).

Stephen J. Farneth, FAIA, (Treasurer) is a founding partner of Architectural Resources Group. Steve’s thirty-five years of leadership at ARG have involved all aspects of the practice, including planning, conservation, and design for some of the most historic places in California and the west.  The firm has won numerous awards for preservation and design over that period, including the California Council AIA Firm of the Year in 2006. He is a board member of the Historic Preservation Education Foundation.  He also serves on the California State Historic Building Safety Board, the Design Review Committee of UC Berkeley, and the California Missions Foundation Board. 

Martha Werenfels, AIA, LEED AP, is a partner in the architectural firm of Durkee Brown Viveiros & Werenfels (Providence, Rhode Island) and has extensive experience in the restoration of National Historic Landmarks.  She has been the principal architect for the restoration of the Rhode Island State House and has completed award-winning affordable housing rehabilitation projects.  She is a past president of the American Institute of Architects Rhode Island chapter, and formerly worked for the Rhode Island State Historic Preservation Office and for the Washington, DC, office of the National Park Service, which promotes dissemination of historic preservation information and administers national preservation standards.

Amanda Lewkowicz, AIA, LEED AP, is a project architect in the architectural firm of Quinn Evans Architects (Washington, DC) and has wide-ranging experience in the preservation of historic structures. Whether it be through meticulous building documentation or investigation of existing conditions in the field, Amanda takes a hands-on approach in her practice and loves getting into a dialog with a building. She believes this practical and up-close approach is critical to preservation education. She has been the project architect for the restoration of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia and has recently been involved in the south entrance renovation of the National Museum of Natural History and numerous embassy projects around the Washington, DC area. She formerly worked for the Preservation League of New York State. She is a graduate of the University of Washington's Master of Architecture program and received her Bachelor of Arts from Haverford College.

Richard Pieper was Director of Preservation and Partner in the architectural firm of Jan Hird Porkorny Associates in New York City until 2018. Since 1995 Pieper has been an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, where he teaches a course on the conservation of architectural metals. From 2001 to 2005 Pieper directed the exterior restoration of the cast iron and steel cladding of the Battery Maritime Building, and from 1994 to 1997 the restoration of the cast iron drum and dome of the New Jersey State House. He has written numerous publications on historic preservation, including the National Park Service Preservation Brief on the Maintenance, Repair and Replacement of Historic Cast Stone, and has lectured widely on the subject. Pieper has served on the boards of numerous historic preservation organizations, including US ICOMOS and the Historic Preservation Education Foundation. Pieper also co-chaired the 2011 Symposium on the Restoration of Cast and Wrought Iron.

Deborah Slaton, FAPT, is a principal with Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (Northbrook, Illinois), an engineering, architecture, and materials science firm specializing in problem-solving for historic buildings and structures nationwide. Her work has included projects ranging from Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina to St. Elizabeths, the nation’s first mental institution in Washington, D.C., and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. She has lectured and published extensively on issues related to historic preservation, including several Preservation Briefs for the National Park Service. She is also a member of the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Transportation Research Board Committee ADC-50 on Historic and Archaeological Preservation in Transportation.

Neela K. Wickremesinghe is the Director of Restoration and Preservation at The Green-Wood Cemetery. She began work at Green-Wood in 2016. Neela and her team are responsible for all repairs at the cemetery from small monument resets to large vault and mausoleum restorations. A graduate of Smith College, Neela received a B.A in Art: Architecture and Urbanism. She completed her M.S. in Historic Preservation at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. She is a Professional Associate of the American Institute of Conservation and a Recognized Professional by the Association for Preservation Technology. She is an active member of the Preservation Alumni group for GSAPP and enjoys teaching up and coming construction professionals each spring as part of the Bridge to Crafts Careers workforce development program.

EMERITUS

Marilyn Kaplan, RA, FAPT, is a national expert on fire protection for historic building and devotes considerable time working with public officials to incorporate in building codes provisions that not only provide for public safety but also ensure that the historic qualities of older buildings will be preserved. Her firm, Preservation Architecture (Albany, New York), actively works with museums, non-profit organizations, and local governments in maintaining, restoring, and rehabilitating historic properties.  An instructor and lecturer at many public forums, she also serves as a board member and member of a number of community preservation organizations.