To: ICOMOS National Committees and their Members
From: Douglas C. Comer, Ph.D., President, United States National Committee, ICOMOS
I write to ask for your active support for Ms. Monica Rhodes as a candidate for the ICOMOS Board. Please encourage friends and colleagues in other national committees to urge those who cast ballots to vote for Ms. Rhodes. Our National Committee is pleased and proud to have Monica as a member of our Board of Trustees, where she is helping to move us vigorously forward in developing stronger social justice initiatives, incorporating indigenous knowledge in all aspects of World Heritage, advancing support of the 2030 UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals, and raising public awareness of the inextricable links between heritage and climate change. We are certain that Ms. Rhodes’s energy and innovative thought will benefit ICOMOS and all its member national and scientific committees should she be elected to the Board.
Ms. Rhodes is currently a Rome Prize Fellow in Historic Preservation and Conservation at the American Academy in Rome and serves as a presidentially-appointed expert member of the United States Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. In her earlier work, she established cooperative programs with Historically Black Colleges and Universities to involve architectural students in historic preservation projects. In 2022, Ms. Rhodes was awarded the Adele Chatfield-Taylor Rome Prize by the American Academy in Rome and was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University.
Ms. Rhodes’ work has been prominently featured in news outlets such as the PBS NewsHour, Huffington Post, Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report. We are certain that her ability to harness the power of media to better link cultural heritage with the issues that present existential threats to humanity will serve ICOMOS well.
Sincerely,
Douglas C. Comer, Ph.D.
President