08 Jun Checking in from the Nation’s Capitol

Hola todos! My name is Annelise Kouns-Warburton and this summer I’ve come from Central Florida to Washington, D.C., to work as an intern with the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places. I completed my BA in Architecture back in 2007 at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, and most recently I finished my MA in Historic Preservation at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. I have always been a huge advocate of heritage and culture, especially with regard to the built environment, from the time I was a kid, so traveling and gaining further exposure to other cultures has only deepened this passion. I’ve worked predominantly in Europe and in the Caribbean and also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica. Being raised in the Caribbean and having those ties (to the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico) has instilled great interest in Caribbean cultural and heritage preservation, which was a main focus of my graduate studies. This opportunity to participate in the Latino Heritage Internship Program and to work with the National Park Service is truly an honor and will be very enlightening. The main objective of my internship this summer will be to update both the National Register’s Section-7 Architectural Styles and Forms Guidelines, as well as update the overall system to a web-based format. This will not only be more helpful to those without prior architectural knowledge, but it will be a wonderful, interactive explanation through various images, floor plans, forms and descriptive text, to better guide interested individuals in their endeavors of tackling the National Register application process. I am very much looking forward to this opportunity to apply my knowledge and skills directly and also to learn from the best of the best at the National Register, especially with regard to gaining firsthand experience on the other side of the nominations process. I also look forward to my time in D.C. and experiencing the wonderful heritage in our beautiful capitol.