Diana Hernández is a public historian, educator, and cultural heritage practitioner with a focus on community based preservation and descendant centered interpretation. Her work spans the documentation of unmarked burial grounds and other cultural landscapes across the United States and Latin America.She holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the University of Texas at Austin and has completed doctoral coursework in History with an emphasis on material culture, memory studies, and public history. Before entering the preservation field, Diana spent more than a decade teaching at the middle school, high school, and university levels, a background that continues to shape her approaches to storytelling, pedagogy, and collaborative heritage work.
Her recent projects include research with luthier communities in Michoacán, Mexico, as well as fieldwork connected to contemporary folk music traditions across northern and central Mexico.
Diana joins ICOMOS USA as Program Director of the Monuments Toolkit Project, where she will guide the Toolkit’s national and international growth through research, partnerships, and community centered practice.