Kathleen Conti ’11 receives international Scholar Award from P.E.O. Sisterhood

Kathleen Conti ’11

Kathleen Conti ’11 was recently one of 150 doctoral students in the United States and Canada selected to receive a $15,000 Scholar Award from the P.E.O. Sisterhood. Conti is a Ph.D. student in architecture and historic preservation at the University of Texas at Austin and was sponsored by Chapter CR of Austin, Texas.

As a public historian and preservation professional, Conti’s research spans across the Americas and the former Soviet Union, focusing on how to preserve and interpret places of “difficult heritage”—sites of trauma, contested history, or atrocities. Her dissertation explores issues of race and representation at historic sites in the U.S. Conti, who was a history major at Randolph, has consulted on projects across the country as a historian at HHM & Associates, and particularly enjoys helping communities rebuilding after natural disasters.

The P.E.O. Scholar Awards (PSA) were established in 1991 to provide substantial merit-based awards for women of the U.S. and Canada who are pursuing a doctoral-level degree at an accredited college or university. Scholar Award recipients are a select group of women chosen for their high level of academic achievement and their potential for having a positive impact on society.

The P.E.O. Sisterhood, founded January 21, 1869, at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, is a philanthropic educational organization dedicated to supporting higher education for women. There are approximately 6,000 local chapters in the U.S. and Canada with nearly a quarter of a million active members.