2024 Celebration of World Heritage Honorees and Speakers

Hon. Sara C. Bronin, Chair, U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
“Integrating a Climate Response in Federal Historic Preservation Law and Policy”

Sara C. Bronin was confirmed by unanimous consent by the United States Senate in December 2022 to serve as the 12th chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. A Mexican American, she is the first person of color to serve in this position.

Prior to her confirmation, Chair Bronin spent her career as a professor and public servant. Her interdisciplinary research in the areas of property, land use, historic preservation, and energy has focused on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places. She has published five books and treatises and dozens of articles, book chapters, and shorter works on these topics. She also founded the National Zoning Atlas, which aims to translate and standardize information about how zoning regulates housing in around 30,000 jurisdictions nationally.

While chairing the ACHP, she is on leave from her tenured position at Cornell University, where she serves as Professor in the College of Architecture Art & Planning, Professor in the Rubacha Department of Real Estate, an Associate Faculty Member of the Law School, and a member of the Graduate Faculty in the Field of Architecture. At Cornell, she founded and directs the Legal Constructs Lab, serves as a faculty fellow of the Atkinson Center for Sustainability, and is an affiliate of the Cornell Center for Social Sciences. She has also held visiting positions at the Yale School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.

Chair Bronin is a seventh-generation Texan, born and raised in and around Houston. She is the daughter of a public school teacher and civil engineer, and she grew up working in her grandparents’ Mexican restaurant.

2024 Special Guest and Speaker

Mayor J. William Reynolds, Mayor of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Chair of the Bethlehem World Heritage Commission

A lifelong resident of Bethlehem, J. William Reynolds, became the youngest City Council member in Bethlehem’s history following his successful challenge to a slate of incumbent Council members. In 2014, William was elected by his colleagues to serve as President of City Council. 2021 saw William capture nearly 65 percent of the vote while sweeping all 37 wards in
becoming Bethlehem’s 14th Mayor.

During his City Council tenure, William focused on economic revitalization, neighborhood investment, and climate action. Mayor Reynolds and his energetic team have been actively implementing initiatives around sustainability efforts, affordable housing, addressing homelessness, continuing its Community Recovery Fund opportunity, and conducting a feasibility study for a South Side Community Center. Bethlehem is seeing unprecedented levels of private investment, job creation numbers unrivaled in post-industrial communities, and record demand to live in the city.

Bethlehem’s evolving identity as a multicultural, economically flourishing, and vibrant place to be continues to help place the city on several “Best Places to Live in America” lists. Additionally, on July 26, 2024, the City’s Historic Moravian Bethlehem National Landmark District was inscribed on the prestigious World Heritage List as Moravian Church Settlements at the World Heritage Committee Meeting in New Delhi, India.

Mayor Reynolds currently serves as chair of the Bethlehem World Heritage Commission and has also served on Moravian University’s Board of Trustees and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s Transition Team. He resides in north Bethlehem with his wife Dr. Natalie Bieber and son Leo.