Featured Speakers
Cultural and Historic Preservation Conference
Morrison Heckscher, Richard A. Grills Keynote Speaker in Historic Preservation
Salve Regina has persuaded Morrison Heckscher, longtime chairman of the American wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, out of retirement to give the Richard A. Grills Keynote Address in Historic Preservation. Heckscher spent his entire career at the Met, beginning in the print department with its store of architectural drawings and later gravitating to the American wing, where its renowned collection of period rooms was one of his principal interests. He has been a fervent admirer of Newport architecture ever since his first visit on an undergraduate field trip from Wesleyan University in 1960.
Jesse Casana, Salve Regina Preservation Scholar in Archaeology
Jesse Casana is an archaeologist at Dartmouth College whose research reconstructs regional-scale, long-term settlement and land use histories. He has worked extensively in Iraq, Syria and Turkey, and collaborates on numerous other investigations around the globe. Casana is a specialist in sensing, using satellite imagery, drones and ground-based geophysics in the discovery and mapping of archaeological sites, and has used these technologies in a long-running effort to document looting and site damage in the context of recent conflicts in the Middle East.
Carl Lounsbury, Salve Regina Preservation Scholar in Architectural History
Carl Lounsbury retired in 2016 as the senior architectural historian at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Over a 35-year career at Colonial Williamsburg, he was responsible for long-term research projects such as the study of English and colonial American public buildings, churches, meetinghouses and theaters as well as the terminology, practice and technology of pre-industrial building. He was involved in the restoration of many buildings in the Historic Area. Before coming to Williamsburg in 1982, he conducted architectural surveys for the state historic preservation office in North Carolina. He has also had an extensive career consulting with museums, historical and preservation societies, academic institutions and homeowners in the investigation and restoration of historic buildings.