Biography
Jen specializes in teaching architectural design studio, history of architecture, and urban theory.Her 2018 doctoral dissertation, The Physiognomy of a Collection: Architectural Legibility and Historical Expression at the Musée des monuments français (1795-1816) explored the use of physiognomy and other methods of classification to code temporal and historical relationships onto objects and, bodies, and architectural spaces during the French Revolution. She extends her interest in the architectural codification of the body to study the use of the Bertillon system of measurement during the Chinese Exclusion Act and the history of public housing in the United States. Jen has contributed to HAA's digital humanities initiative, Itinera, specializing in the travels of Alexander von Humboldt. Jen is also a practicing architect who has worked on a variety of built projects, including the Peter B. Lewis Center and Woodhill Homes in Cleveland, Ohio.
Education Details
PhD, History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh
Master of Art, History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh
Master of Architecture, Miami University
Selected Publications
"Immortal Shadows and the Legible Body at the Musée des monuments français," Architectural Ghosts, under review.
"Paper Suspects: Bertillonage and Criminalized Identity under the Chinese Exclusion Act," project in progress with A. Quigley.
"Itinera as Methodology” in “Itinera’s Displacements: A Roundtable with Christopher Drew Armstrong, Lily Brewer, Jennifer Donnelly, Alison Langmead, Vibeka McGyver, and Meredith North,” Journal 18 (2018).
“Myth, Modernity, and Mass Housing: The Development of Public Housing in Depression-era Cleveland.” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 25, no 1 (2013): 45-68.
“Mirror of Time: Temporality and Contemporaneity in the work of Jorge Luis Borges.” Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture, 2 (July 2012).
Selected Awards
HAA Graduate Excellence in Teaching Award
Ruth Crawford Mitchell Memorial Scholarship, Nationality Rooms Scholarship
2007 AIA Henry Adams Medal, awarded to the top student in the department of architecture
Conferences and Public Speaking
Invited Lecturer, Miami University, Department of Architecture, Oxford, OH, April 22 2015.
"Physiognomy, Agency, and Objecthood at the Museum of French Monuments." NCSA 36th Annual Conference, Boston, MA, March 26-28, 2015.
“Temporal Tourism: The Transformation of History at the Museum of French Monuments." NCSA 34th Annual Conference, Fresno, CA, March 8, 2013.
“The Idea of Time: Historical Consciousness and Aesthetic Unfolding.” ACSA 95th Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, March 8-11, 2007.