Staff Member News

Ellen Dement Hurd joined the staff in July as the Certified Local Government Coordinator. A native of Conyers, Georgia, Hurd holds a bachelor’s degree in U.S. History and History of Art from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree in Architecture, History and Theory from the University of Washington. Her undergraduate thesis on the Nashville Customs House received highest honors in History of Art. As a Vanderbilt Library Fellow, Hurd created a digital exhibition of the university’s collection of architectural drawings of the Woolworth Building in New York. She also worked as a research assistant on a book on the Cambridge School of Architecture for women in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and volunteered with Historic Nashville’s Easements Committee. Hurd’s master thesis focused on architecture of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. In graduate school, she worked as a processing assistant with the University of Washington Special Collections Architecture Collection. Recently, Hurd worked as an architectural historian with Jacobs Engineering, where she documented historic resources for transportation projects in Seattle and Atlanta.