Jennifer Saunders
Education
B.A. Anthropology + French & Francophone Studies, College of William & Mary
M.A. Anthropology, University of Virginia
Biography
Jennifer provides general support to the Center for Cultural Landscapes as a whole, including its public-facing research projects. With a background including archaeology, library and archival work, and historic preservation, Jennifer brings a broad range of skills and experience to the Center’s projects.
An ABD PhD candidate in the UVA Department of Anthropology, her dissertation work examines how communities have worked to preserve history and create a sense of belonging around St. Emma Military Academy and St. Francis de Sales School in Powhatan County, Virginia. These now-closed Catholic boarding schools for African American and Native American students operated from the 1890s to the 1970s, and educated thousands of students from across the US.
Before coming to the Center for Cultural Landscapes, Jennifer took part in numerous cultural heritage and historic preservation projects. She worked as an archaeological field technician and an architectural history survey technician, and was both a volunteer and an intern in the DC Historic Preservation Office. This latter opportunity led to independent scholarship at the site of an African American midwife’s home in Washington, DC. As the 2023-2024 Digital Humanities Fellow in the Scholars' Lab at UVA Libraries, Jennifer undertook a 3D/VR reconstruction of a portion of St. Emma’s campus as an exploration of alternative historic preservation methodologies.
When not at work, Jennifer enjoys watching avant-garde movies with friends, cooking new recipes with about a 50% success rate (if we're being generous), and wrangling two feline companions, who may or may not have dissertation-related names.
