Kathleen Powers Conti

As a public historian and preservationist, Kathleen Powers Conti consults on projects across the U.S. and is an assistant professor of history at Florida State University. Her research spans across the Americas and the former Soviet Union, focusing on how to preserve and interpret places of “difficult heritage” — sites of trauma, contested history, or atrocities. Her community-engaged research helps people and communities preserve the stories and places that matter to them — for today but also for future generations.

Dr. Conti is a 2026 MacDowell Fellow and is currently writing her first book project, Fingerprints in Brick: Race, Memory, and Historic Preservation in the American South. She has published several book chapters, including in Revisiting the Past in Museums and Historic Sites and Architectures of Slavery: Ruins & Reconstructions. Her research has been recognized and supported by the the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Park Service, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Association for Preservation Technology, the Society for Architectural Historians, the Graham Foundation, Dumbarton Oaks, PEO International, Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, and the Mellon Urban Initiative, among others.

She frequently consults on public history and architectural projects throughout the US, including designing memorials and museum exhibits as well as writing historic contexts, design guidelines, and nominations to the National Register of Historic Places. Notable projects include developing new treatment options to protect cultural landscapes at risk of natural disasters and developing new interpretation at Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birth home and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. In light of her work, the President of the National Council on Public History appointed her as co-chair for their consultants committee to develop guidelines for “Best Practices for Consulting Historians.” Dr. Conti also serves on the board of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. 

Dr. Conti is affiliated faculty with FSU’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Center and teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in historic preservation, museum studies, public history, architectural history, and environmental history. In these courses, she emphasizes the importance of place-based learning at historic sites and engages students in real-world projects with community partners. In 2025, she was awarded the Roy E. Graham Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation Education.