Announcing the 2020 Zabar Family Scholarship Recipients!
Congratulations to the 2020 recipients of the Zabar Family Scholarship!
The Zabar Family Scholarship Program is a partnership between Lori Zabar, the Zabar Family Foundation, and the Preservation League to award three annual scholarships of $1,000 each to the best and brightest preservation students from around the state.
Meet the 2020 recipients:
Claire Cancilla is pursuing her Master’s in Historic Preservation at Columbia. Her thesis topic is on William Pereira and his work in Los Angeles. Pereira contributed significantly to the urban fabric of L.A.’s downtown, including three significant buildings slated for demolition: the Metropolitan Water Building, the Times Mirror Square extension, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In her essay, Claire noted that “Pereira’s work exemplifies the conservation dilemmas created by development pressure that threatens not only structures, but also urban forms that the public and decision makers view as obsolete. These problems are not limited to Los Angeles; cities across the world are beginning to grapple with similar Modernist resources.” She continued, “Modernist preservation in the face of rapid development is timely both for technical reasons, including the material deterioration and structural failure of many Modernist buildings, and for its broader impact on urbanism. These increasingly urgent issues demand new research, analysis, and answers. My thesis research and my post-graduate professional career will aim to contribute to better understanding and addressing these unique preservation challenges.” Claire just accepted an internship at the World Monuments Fund, prior to which she interned at Building Conservation Associates and the J.M. Kaplan Fund. She is a research assistant for Professor Andrew Dolkart who gave her his highest praise, saying “Claire is destined to be a leader in the historic preservation world.”
Erin Murphy is also pursuing her Master’s in Historic Preservation at Columbia. Her focus is on preservation engineering, and the panel noted that “preservation engineers are a special breed – we need more of them.” Professor Tim Michiels gave Erin a glowing reference. He cited her outstanding classwork and leadership abilities, noting that Erin enrolled Columbia in the APT PTEC Student Design Competition. “This competition investigated the design and construction of traditional masonry arches and required the students to produce a preservation plan for an arch near campus, and to build and load test a masonry arch…I witnessed firsthand how she worked weekends, long nights, and even fetched the construction materials last minute at 6 a.m. in the morning on a school day (due to an unforeseen delivery issue) all to make this extracurricular activity possible and be able to attend the preservation technology conference.” Professor Michiels concluded by saying, “It is my strong belief that Erin has the potential to become a respected preservation professional in the Northeast and thus I hope you may boost her aspirations by awarding her the Zabar fellowship which will further help launch her career.”
Sarah Tietje-Mietz is pursuing a Master’s of Arts in Journalism from the SI Newhouse School of Journalism at Syracuse. She has also received a Master’s of Science in Historic Preservation from the Art Institute of Chicago and has served on the board of the Erie Canal Museum and the New York Chapter of the Association for Gravestone Studies. Sarah works full-time as the Director of the Hilltop House at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, a position that was created for her. She is responsible for Hilltop House’s curation, research, administration, visitation, and interpretation, and is actively working to preserve the house as a defining example of mid-century craftsmanship. “Historic structures give us a sense of identity and place and contribute strongly to our communities as places of interest and importance. It is my goal to continue to share stories, in effective ways, that help people understand why these places matter, and the degree I am pursuing at Syracuse University will better enable me to do so,” she wrote. Professor Johanna Keller who knows her well said quite simply, “I expect great things from Sarah in the future. She is passionate about architecture and historic preservation. This passion, combined with her work ethic and her talent, will take her to the top of the field, of that I have no doubt.”