B. Jack Hanly

B. Jack Hanly received his PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture from MIT in 2026. His dissertation, The Environmental Professionals: Architecture, Regulation, and the American Landscape, looked at the rise of the American environmental movement against the transformation of architectural practice in the 1960s and 70s. It argues that architects were increasingly called upon to serve as mediators between public activists and private developers, while styling themselves as a new kind of environmental expert combining ecology, systems thinking, and corporate consulting. Jack’s other recent and ongoing research has focused on the architecture and urbanism of the oil industry around the period of the 1973 OPEC embargo, the history of soil sciences in processes of urbanization, and the utility of plant life in Cold War uranium mining. His writing can be found in the Journal of Architectural Education, Perspecta, Histories of Postwar Architecture, and the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, among other venues, and his research has been supported by the Huntington Library, the Forest History Society, and the Graham Foundation for the Arts, from which he received a Citation of Special Recognition in the Carter Manny Award. Jack holds a Master of Environmental Design from the Yale School of Architecture (2019) and a BA in Environmental and Urban Studies from Bard College (2016).