Rebekah Coffman

Rebekah Coffman is a historian, preservationist, and curator currently serving as curator of religion and community history at the Chicago History Museum where she leads the Chicago Sacred Initiative. Her interdisciplinary work is at the intersection of religious identity and the built environment through place-based, community-centered approaches. In 2019, she began the Sacred Shift Project, an ongoing international survey of urban religious buildings adapted for ritual reuse by diasporic communities. Her research has been recognized, including NYU’s Gavin Stamp Award in Adaptive Reuse; a commendation by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain; and Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum’s Lindsey Jones Memorial Research award.