Victoria Hensley is a recent graduate of Middle Tennessee State University's Public History PhD program. Currently, she is completing a postdoctoral position at Vanderbilt University's Robert Penn Warren Center for Humanities while also teaching graduate courses for the University of North Alabama's Public History program. Prior to finishing her PhD, she worked with the City of Franklin Planning and Sustainability Department. She also served as the Research Director and Social Media Manager in Residence with Black Craftspeople Digital Archive from 2019-2021. She completed her MA in Public History with a focus in Historic Preservation in May 2018. At MTSU, she served as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Historic Preservation. Hensley also served as an adjunct professor in MTSU's History Department, teaching HIST 2020: Survey of American History II, 1877-Present.
Her main areas of research include: historic preservation, urban history, and material culture. Her written work has explored the ties between historic preservation and gentrification, specifically analyzing the ways in which grassroots historic preservation can be used as a tool to aid or abate displacement. She has also completed projects in the Greater Nashville area, Memphis, Tennessee, Alabama, Carrboro and Chapel Hill, NC, and Portland, OR.
Hensley is also an UNC-Chapel Hill alumna with a BA in History and Peace, War, and Defense, a former intern at Preservation Chapel Hill and Restore Oregon.
