Mary teaches about the American built environment, cultural landscapes and historic preservation and coordinates outreach activities including internships, field classes and independent studies in the American Studies Program. She started her professional career in historic preservation as executive director of the Our Town – Downtown Revitalization Project in Laramie in 1984. From there she joined the Mountains/Plains Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Denver, where she was the assistant director and co-founded BARN AGAIN!, a national program to preserve historic farm buildings. She helped to found the Tracks Across Wyoming heritage corridor, and has been involved with numerous preservation projects in Wyoming and the West.

Mary’s specialty is studying, interpreting and writing about American landscapes, and developing strategies to help preserve them. In 2001-02 she received a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to study preservation of rural buildings and landscapes in Japan, and she returns to Japan regularly to practice Japanese as well as keep up on current research. She engages her students in a variety of projects throughout Wyoming. Recent examples include analyzing state policies on school construction, documenting and interpreting mining and ranching landscapes, developing a preservation plan for a military camp and working with individual communities to identify and celebrate important community places.