Sarah Lopez

Sarah Lopez is an Associate Professor at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, specializing in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her research bridges the histories of migration between Mexico and the United States, examining how material cultures and spatial practices shape transnational subjectivities.

• B.A., University of California, Berkeley (2001)
• M.S., University of California, Berkeley (2006)
• Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (2011)

Lopez's work investigates how migrant remittances and labor create transformed landscapes in Mexico and the U.S., with a focus on volcanic tuff architecture and the construction industry's evolving dynamics. She employs interdisciplinary methods including ethnography and micro-historical analysis.

Her publications demonstrate a trajectory from analyzing remittance-funded architecture in Mexico (2010) to exploring material flows (2025) and systemic detention landscapes (2019). Research spans architectural history, migration theory, and socio-political spatial analysis.

• 2017 Kostof Book Award (Society of Architectural Historians)
• Princeton-Mellon Fellowship in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities
• Dumbarton Oaks/Harvard Fellowship in Urban Landscape Studies
• CASVA Fellowship at National Gallery
• MacDowell Fellowship

Lopez has received significant research support including the Princeton-Mellon and Dumbarton Oaks fellowships, and her teaching incorporates architectural history of the Americas and interdisciplinary methodologies for spatial analysis.