The New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design (HCAD), a comprehensive design school in an R1 polytechnic university, has announced that Professor Gabrielle Esperdy has been appointed as the Interim Dean. 

According to HCAD, Professor Esperdy is an architectural historian and critic working on the intersection of architecture, consumerism, and modernism in urban and suburban landscapes. She is a Professor of Architecture at HCAD, where she has taught since 2001. She is a prolific author, and she has received numerous awards including a 2013 University Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2015 Robert Van Houten Award for Teaching Excellence, and the 2021 Board of Overseers Research Prize and Medal.

She is also a pioneer in the digital humanities who has devised new methods for finding, aggregating, and organizing architectural data to pursue historical research. Currently, she is collaborating with the Getty Research Institute on the archives of Ed Ruscha’s project – Streets of Los Angeles.

Professor Esperdy is the founding editor of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Archipedia, an open-access, peer-reviewed online encyclopedia of the history of the built environment in the U.S. In March 2021, she was named editor-in-chief of the Buildings of the United States (BUS), the award-winning book series published by the University of Virginia Press, and SAH Archipedia.

She earned her B.A. at Smith College and PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Professor Esperdy will succeed Dr. Branco Kolarevic. Dr. Kolarevic served as Dean since July 2019. An article about Dr. Kolarevic’s tenure can be found HERE.