Faculty Profile

With a Ph.D. in architectural history (Yale University), Ned Kaufman has taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and elsewhere, and served as guest curator for the inaugural exhibition of the Canadian Centre for Architecture. From 1989 to 2000 he was director of historic preservation at the Municipal Art Society of New York, where he led successful campaigns to save Ellis Island’s historic buildings and organized an international design competition for a memorial to New York’s African Burial Ground. In 1996 he published History Happened Here, a comprehensive plan to protect and interpret New York’s historic sites. In 1998 he founded Place Matters, a partnership between the MAS and City Lore, dedicated to identifying and protecting places of community memory and tradition. Dr. Kaufman served as co-director until 2000.

Since 2000, Dr. Kaufman has worked as a consultant in heritage conservation. His policy studies include assessments of the heritage preservation needs of diverse racial and ethnic groups (National Park Service) and of the impact of land-use policies on the preservation of cultural traditions (Nathan Cummings Foundation). He has also organized educational programs, advised on museum exhibitions, and directed preservation planning charrettes. Dr. Kaufman publishes and lectures widely and, in 2002, was selected by the State Department to represent the United States at two international symposia on heritage conservation held in Buenos Aires.

Dr. Kaufman currently serves as founding coordinator of Pratt Institute’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, launched in 2004. He lives and works in New York City.