Historic preservation (history, theory, and practice); public history; modern United States history and cultural geography; vernacular architecture; urban renewal; local history; rhetoric; environmental history and regulation; wildfire and architecture; political ecology.
Shelby Kendrick is a public historian and doctoral student of architecture at UC Berkeley with a degree emphasis in history, theory, and society. Her doctoral research focuses on the historic preservation movement and adaptive preservation techniques in the United States. Prior to moving to Berkeley in 2021, she worked in historical and environmental consulting, preparing environmental documents for diverse development, planning, land use, and mining reclamation projects throughout California. Originally from Louisiana, but she has lived in northern California since 2014.
Kendrick served as co-editor-in-chief for Issue 11 (Sediment) of Room One Thousand. Sediment won the Douglas Haskell Award for Architecture Student Journals in 2023. In 2022 through 2023, she was a graduate student researcher for Future History Lab and Arts + Design's A Year on Angel Island: Immigration Histories and Futures project. Her role included organizing the Angel Island Townsend Working Group/Site Project, which culminated in a series of site-specific performances at the Angel Island Immigration Station during the California Preservation Foundation Annual Conference.
Her dissertation explores the racial, rhetorical, and political dynamics behind preservation processes at both local and national levels. Using two case studies in New Orleans—the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) and Tremé—it investigates how notions of historical significance evolve over time through rhetoric and how those meanings become materially embedded in the urban fabric through markers, public art, and historical documentation.
ARCH 170B – Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism: 1400–Present, Spring 2025
ARCH 112 – Social Life of Building, Fall 2024
AMERSTD 10 – Introduction to American Studies: New Orleans Culture, Summer 2024
AMERSTD 10 – Introduction to American Studies: House and Home in America, Spring 2024
ARCH 170A – Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism: Ancient–1400, Fall 2023
AMERSTD 10 – Introduction to American Studies: New Orleans Culture, Summer 2023
ARCH 170B – Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism: 1400–Present, Spring 2023
Pamela H. Simpson Presenter's Fellowship, Vernacular Architecture Forum, 2025
William J. Murtagh Scholarship for Graduate Historic Preservation Studies, Maine Foundation, 2024
Judith Stronach Travel Grant, Department of Art History, UC Berkeley, 2024
Moody Research Grant, LBJ Foundation, 2023
NOCA Docomomo National Symposium Travel Grant Recipient, 2022
"Recasting Narratives: Melting the Charlottesville Robert E. Lee Monument," Room One Thousand, Issue 13, Summer 2025
“Unpacking Historical Significance: Preservation Rhetoric and Societal Values in New Orleans,” Poster Presenter, Vernacular Architecture Forum Annual Conference, 2025
“Constructing Significance: Preservation Discourses in Two New Orleans Neighborhoods,” Presenter, California Preservation Foundation Annual Conference, 2025
“Remembering Back to Life: Berkeley’s Old City Hall,” for Berkeley Architecture Heritage Association, May 2025
“From the Ashes: The Demise and Rise of North Berkeley in 1923,” with Steven Finacom for Archaeological Research Facility, Nov 2023
“Learn from Fire: How the 1923 Fire Changed Berkeley’s Architecture,” for Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, Sept 2023
“Relevant Observatories: Connecting Your Historic Site to Current Events,” Panelist, California Preservation Foundation Symposium, April 2023
“Sedimented in Place: A Conversation on Embedded Values in Architecture with Donna Graves and Chris Cornelius,” Moderator, Feb 2023