Hannah Mellor

This photo is of me in front of the Robie House in Chicago, IL. My dad is an architect and was a student of Tasso Katselas in the ’90s. The Robie House is my favorite F. L. Wright house, so I wanted to share a photo of me in an important place!

MS Historic Preservation

Expected Graduation Date: Spring 2022

Previous Degree: BS, Ecology and Evolution, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

I’m From: Pittsburgh, PA

Why I Came to the UO and How I Chose My Major
I chose the University of Oregon specifically because the Historic Preservation program was part of the College of Design. I was really excited by the thought of many different, yet aligned disciplines working closely in the same program. I am a person who has difficulty narrowing the scope of my interests, so having the opportunity to work and take classes with people of many different backgrounds was important to me. I need to figure out where I fit in to the field of historic preservation, and I think the best way to do that is from a holistic and interdisciplinary approach.

After I graduated from my undergraduate degree, I was very much disillusioned with academia. So I worked for a start-up tech company, and quickly became disillusioned with the tech industry as well. I was re-evaluating my career goals during this time, and took a lot of long walks in different neighborhoods of my hometown of Pittsburgh. I have always gravitated towards walking in cemeteries, and I started to notice that even in a well-known cemetery in Pittsburgh, there were a lot of monuments and headstones that required some level of restoration or repair. Walking in cemeteries and old neighborhoods is how I connect with myself and with my ancestors, so I want part of my life to involve restoring old monuments, tombs, or buildings to carry our ancestors achievements into the future.

I am most looking forward to working with Dr. James Buckley, who grew up in Pittsburgh as well, so I feel like we will be able to connect well over that. I’m very interested to see if the same preservation challenges that affect Pittsburgh affect a larger, newer city like Portland. Dr. Buckley is also teaching Cultural Resource Management (CRM), which is probably the class I am most elooking forward to. I am hoping to incorporate CRM into my career in the future, possibly as a consultant. So I feel I have the most to learn from Dr. Buckley, especially for my first year in the program.

Unique Qualities I Bring to My Studies
My unique life experiences fall into three general categories, the first of which is my science background. My worldview revolves around using experiments and empirical evidence to come to conclusions, so I think this will help me very much with problem solving and completing my own projects during my studies. I also have a lot of study abroad and travel experience, which I think will provide a unique perspective on architecture and preservation in general. It will certainly help me place American architecture into its global context. Finally, I have extensive experience using GIS and mathematical modeling to design my own experiments and create legible maps. I’m not sure how popular GIS solutions are in the historic preservation field, but I anticipate it will give me a unique problem-solving perspective.

Extracurricular Activities I Want to Pursue
Because of the current situation this year (classes being all online), I’m not sure what organizations or sports are available for graduate students this year. I would love to be able to join a student music or rock climbing group, as those are two major interests of mine outside of school. This would enhance my studies by allowing me to form a closer community of friends with varying interests. Having friends that I can have fun with outside of studying historic preservation is really integral to my mental health, so I am hoping these organizations are available to join this year.

After Graduation
After graduation, I want to develop my own GIS/architectural history consulting business. Projects like identifying Gallows Hill in Salem, MA, or discovering the Clotilda (the “last slave ship”) made heavy use of GIS to accomplish their goals. There are still a lot more opportunities for GIS to be incorporated into preservation, and I hope to be driving that relationship forward in the future.

Your Gift
This is no exaggeration: this scholarship may have saved my life. After I graduated from undergrad and started working, I became very depressed for a long time. I wasn’t passionate or even interested in the work I was doing, and this started to take a toll on my mental health. I also was not happy living in Pittsburgh for a lot of reasons. I knew I had to make a change, so after applying for many jobs in the historic preservation/archaeology fields (and not getting any of them), I thought about going back to school. I knew that I would never be able to pay for it, so I crossed my fingers that I’d get a scholarship to at least one of the places I applied to.

Fortunately, my hopes came true and I accepted the admission offer the day I knew I received this scholarship. Moving to Portland to pursue something I am passionate about may very well have saved my life, and I hope that I can put this scholarship to good use and do Art DeMuro’s legacy justice. I am hoping to start my own GIS/architectural history consulting business, so I am very glad to receive a scholarship from Art DeMuro’s estate specifically. He is someone I look up to.

In the field of property development, there seem to be very few people who have the power, influence, and money to focus on preserving old buildings rather than tearing them down. I am really inspired by Art DeMuro’s ability to develop Portland sustainably, and it’s crazy to think that he was involved in rehabilitating so many buildings that I see while walking around my new home. Thank you for putting preservation and conservation first, for giving back to the historic preservation community, and for establishing this scholarship!