Molly Lester

Margaret (Molly) Lester is the Managing Director of the Preservation Research Collaborative at Penn (PRCP), the research and practice platform of the Weitzman School of Design's Department of Historic Preservation. In that role, she leads the day-to-day project management, operations, and administration of the department's major research initiatives, including the Urban Heritage Project, the Center for Architectural Conservation (CAC), and the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites (CPCRS). Working with PRCP's faculty director, Randall Mason, Molly coordinates an interdisciplinary team of faculty, staff, graduate students, clients, and community partners.

 

In addition to her role with PRCP, Molly's research interests include the She-She-She camps of the New Deal; her research on this topic was supported by a 2024 Cokie Roberts Women's History Fellowship from the National Archives Foundation. Since 2011, she has also been researching the life and legacy of architect Minerva Parker Nichols (1862-1949), with support from a 2019/2020 fellowship from the James Marston Fitch Foundation. As part of that work, she was a guest curator for the exhibit Minerva Parker Nichols: The Search for a Forgotten Architect (2023), produced by the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania and funded by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.

 

Molly is the author of Building Ghosts: Past Lives and Lost Places in a Changing City (Temple University Press, 2024), which grew out of her work as a 2020 grantee of the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, and the co-author of the exhibit book Minerva Parker Nichols: The Search for a Forgotten Architect (distributed by Yale University Press, 2024).

 

She previously worked as a Research Associate for PennPraxis, managing heritage-centric research and community design projects. She has also worked as a national program director for Partners for Sacred Places and as an architectural historian and historic tax credit consultant for Heritage Consulting Group, advising on the rehabilitation of historic properties around the country.

 

She holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Architectural History from the University of Virginia.