Amber N. Wiley is the Matt and Erika Nord Director of the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites (CPCRS) and Presidential Associate Professor in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Her research interests center on the social aspects of design and how it affects urban communities – architecture as a literal and figural structure of power. She focuses on the ways local and national bodies have made the claim for the dominating narrative and collective memory of cities and examines how preservation and public history contribute to the creation and maintenance of the identity and sense of place of a city. Her publications cover African American and African diasporic cultural heritage, urbanism in New Orleans, school design, urban renewal, and preservation. Wiley’s forthcoming book "Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital," is scheduled for release in March 2025 by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Culture, Politics, and the Built Environment Series.