Margaret (Molly) Lester is a historian of the built environment, with particular interest in the ways that women have shaped the American built environment since the 19th century. She is the Associate Director of the Urban Heritage Project at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design, overseeing research, documentation, and engagement projects for historic buildings and cultural landscapes.

In addition to her role with the Urban Heritage Project, Lester’s current research interests center on architect Minerva Parker Nichols (1862-1949); vernacular “building ghosts” in Philadelphia; and the She-She-She Camps for unemployed women during the New Deal. She is a co-curator of Minerva Parker Nichols: The Search for a Forgotten Architect, an exhibition about Nichols that opened at the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania in Spring 2023, and was a 2019/2020 Fellow of the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation for her research on Nichols. Lester was also 2020/21 grantee of the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation for her Building Ghosts project.

Before joining the University of Pennsylvania, Lester was an independent architectural historian and preservation planner, serving as a freelance project manager for PennPraxis, Heritage Matters, and other clients. She previously worked as a program director for Partners for Sacred Places, overseeing a national consulting and grantmaking program for historic congregations. She has also worked as an architectural historian and historic tax credit consultant for Heritage Consulting Group, advising on the rehabilitation of historic properties around the country.

Lester holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Architectural History from the University of Virginia.