Stephanie Ryberg

Ph.D. Area of Study: Historic Preservation, Neighborhood Planning, Community Development

Stephanie Ryberg is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, where she earned a Bachelor's of Urban Planning from the University of Cincinnati in 2001. As part of this degree, she participated in the cooperative education program, gaining experience at Moule & Polyzoides, a design firm in Pasadena, California, at Walt Disney Imagineering, and with the City of Mason, Ohio.

Ms. Ryberg lived in Chicago from 2001-2002, where she worked in the private sector on comprehensive and neighborhood planning.

She completed her Master's of Historic Preservation at the University of Maryland in 2004. During her graduate education, she co-authored a series of reports documenting Modern architecture throughout the state (funded by the Maryland Historical Trust) and prepared the Lincoln Park (Washington, DC) Cultural Landscapes Inventory (for the National Park Service).

Ms. Ryberg presented her graduate thesis research, "An Incremental Approach to Downtown Revitalization: Assessing the Benefits of the Main Street Program in Ohio" at the 2005 Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH) conference.

Ms. Ryberg is entering her fourth year of the Ph.D. program. She is writing and revising her dissertation, which examines the use of historic preservation as a community development strategy in Cleveland, Providence, Seattle and Houston. She has presented portions of her dissertation research at the 2007 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning conference ("Community-Based Organizing for Neighborhood Revitalization: The Use of Historic Preservation at the Grassroots"), the 2007 SACRPH conference ("Planning for the Future by Preserving the Past: Neighborhood Preservation in Cincinnati's Mt. Auburn and Pittsburgh's Manchester Neighborhoods"), and the 2008 International Planning History Society conference ("Community Organizing for Historic Preservation: Forty Years of Progress, 1967-2007").

Ms. Ryberg expects to complete her dissertation by May 2010 and pursue a tenure-track career teaching preservation and city planning.