Alumni Profile; M.A., 2018
What have you been doing since you graduated from BU? Details about your current and past employment? Accomplishments you’re proud of? Challenges you’ve encountered?
Throughout my professional career I have supported various federal agencies in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance, especially in areas pertaining to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) by providing Section 106 and tribal historic preservation technical expertise. I started in 2018 as a Program Specialist at the Tribal Historic Preservation Program of the National Park Service being based in Washington DC. In 2019 I took up a position as an Environmental Protection and Historic Preservation Specialist in the Federal Emergency Management Agency, working primarily with tribes recovering from natural disasters in South Dakota. Since 2021 I have been an Environmental Protection Specialist (archaeologist) at the United States Department of Transportation, Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
How has your time in the Preservation Studies Program shaped your professional and personal lives?
The Preservation Studies Program helped shape the way I interpret NEPA and NHPA, which are the two laws that drive most of my professional work. From the Program, I learned how to understand and use the regulations to make sure infrastructure projects do not adversely affect the natural and built environments.
What advice would you give to students in the program looking for careers in preservation? What do you wish you had known when you were first entering the field?
My biggest piece of advice to students is to take advantage of as many internship opportunities as possible. Not only are they great for learning real-life scenarios, but they are great to meet people and open career opportunities. Through the internships I did during grad school and shadowing people, I was able to get my foot into the federal world early on in my career.
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