Liz McEnaney is a preservationist and non-profit leader.
She collaborates with communities & organizations in the US and the Middle East on education, research, and design initiatives focused on cultural heritage. Examples of work include community-engagement projects that help shape urban policy, exhibitions & publications that share community histories, curriculum development to build organizational capacity, and identifying financial resources to make projects possible. Her recent work in the US has been in partnership with the Hudson Valley Collaborative (HVCo), a woman-led urban design collaborative centered on co-creation and knowledge sharing with communities.
Her experience as Executive Director at Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation and the SS Columbia Project have honed her skills at strategic planning and positioning, as well as fundraising. Her independent research projects focus on helping communities define and preserve their architectural heritage to improve quality of life and strengthen community ties, and she looks at how stories and histories of places can be agents for change and understanding. Much of this independent research is based in Newburgh, New York.
Liz is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, instructing Historic Preservation Thesis (2022) and studios in both the historic preservation and urban design programs (2010-2019). The studio courses focused on regional issues, often using the Hudson Valley as a laboratory for exploration. She also taught urban policy and advised on integrated digital media thesis projects at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering.
She is a founding trustee of Awesome Newburgh and is on the board of The Preservation League of New York State, The Fullerton Center, and Project Hello World. She is a two-time recipient of an Architecture + Design Independent Projects Grant from The New York State Council on the Arts, and has received grants from the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
She holds an M.S. in Historic Preservation from Columbia University and an M.A. from Wellesley College.