Please join the College of Design for the spring 2026 architecture lecture series. This is the Tesar Lecture on Architecture and Culture. 

Tara Dudley, UT Austin

Assistant Professor Tara A. Dudley teaches interior design history and architectural history courses. Her scholarship examines the contributions of African American builders and architects to the American built environment, focusing on the antebellum and Reconstruction eras in the U.S. South. Her approach to the study of cultural resources is interdisciplinary with a focus on nineteenth-century American design, African American architectural history, historic preservation, and material culture. She is the author of the award-winning book "Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence" (University of Texas Press, 2021). Her in-progress works include a biography on the life and work of African American architect John Saunders Chase. As a member of the University’s Commemorative and Contextualization Projects research team, Dr. Dudley engaged in research on the contributions of Black builders and craftsmen to the built environment of The University of Texas campus. She has partnered with the Neill-Cochran House Museum to guide the restoration of and develop interpretive programming for the only intact slave quarters building in Austin, which is located on the museum grounds. 

Dr. Dudley served as a senior architectural historian for Austin-based preservation consulting firm HHM & Associates, Inc. for two decades and continues to consult on preservation projects nationwide. She is well-versed in the integration of scholarly inquiry and professional practice and has expertise in the preparation of historic furnishings reports, National Register of Historic Places nominations, historic resource surveys, and interpretive planning for historic sites. She has served on the City of Austin Historic Landmark Commission and is the current chair of the Texas State Board of Review, the advisory committee that advises the State Historic Preservation Officer regarding National Register nominations.