Ken Breisch is an Associate Professor of Architecture and American Studies and Ethnicity. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and served as founder and Director of the USC Graduate Programs in Historic Preservation (now Heritage Conservation) from 1997 to 2011. Under his leadership, this program was the recipient of the California Preservation Foundation President's Award and a Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award. Breisch has taught at SCI-Arc (The Southern California Institute of Architecture), the University of Delaware and the University of Texas at Austin and served as Director of Survey and Planning for the Texas State Historic Preservation Office from 1981 until 1986. He has published on American architectural history, especially in the areas of vernacular building and library design, where his books include Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America: A Study in Typology (MIT, 1997); The Los Angeles Central Library: Building an Architectural Icon, 1872-1933 (J. Paul Getty Trust, 2016); and American Libraries: 1730-1950 (Library of Congress and W. W. Norton, 2017). He is the co-editor of Constructing Image, Identity and Place: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, IX; and Building Place: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, X (University of Tennessee Press: 2003 and 2005). Breisch is a past president of the Society of Architectural Historians and has served on the Board of The Vernacular Architecture Forum. He was a Santa Monica Planning Commissioner from 1993 to 2000, and a member of the Board of the Santa Monica Public Library from 2001 to 2014. He currently serves on the Santa Monica Landmarks Commission and is Board Member Emeritus of the Santa Monica Conservancy.