Dienabou Barry

Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Education Background: Bachelor of Arts in English from Spelman College

How did you get interested in your field?
The context of my life, which includes being a Guinean American woman, exposed me to realities that I’m passionate about commemorating and reforming. While I recognize that buildings, documents and oral stories inform African Diasporic lives such as mine, I also recognize that these heritage modes need reference points that help us understand and remember their importance in shaping our beings. I wasn’t sure about which path I would take to address this until I completed a project during my undergraduate studies that introduced me to historic preservation.

What was your background prior to coming to Penn?
My background includes being an undergraduate English major who probed archives and explored different storytelling methods. I completed a project examining the dynamics of built sites, including Black heritage information, that heightened my pursuit of historic preservation. The goal of the project was to use the theme “Loving Blackness” to authenticate Black stories.

Why did you choose Penn?
I chose Penn because I admire its dedicated community that helps students become preservation experts in their range of respective concentrations.

What do you like best about Philadelphia?
I enjoy Philadelphia as a walkable city that reminds me of and is not too far from my hometown.

What kinds of activities and/or organizations are you involved in?
I’m currently being supervised by Dr. Francesca Ammon as an Urban Renewal Research Assistant for the urban history project, Preserving Society Hill.

What are your career ambitions?
I’d like to broaden the application of information that comes from built environments which includes implementing more storytelling methods to communicate with communities that need and are unaware of preservation tools.