Lynne D. DiStefano, PhD (UPenn), is a specialist in cultural heritage and urban conservation. Co-founder and past director of the University of Hong Kong’s Architectural Conservation Programmes, she is an adjunct professor at the university and a faculty associate at the Willowbank School of Restoration Arts. From 2006 to 2018, Lynne was an ICOMOS expert and technical evaluator for UNESCO World Heritage sites in Austria, China, Japan, Laos, the Philippines, and South Korea. Previously, Lynne was a chief curator at Museum London and an associate professor at Brescia University College, Western University. Lynne has served on the board of directors of the Ontario Heritage Foundation (now Trust) at two different times and on Heritage Toronto’s Programme Committee. She is the co-author (with Nancy Z. Tausky) of Victorian Architecture in London and Southwestern Ontario: Symbols of Aspiration and (with Ho Yin Lee) has written a number of books and articles about cultural heritage in Hong Kong. In 2024 (with Lavina Ahuja), she completed the editing of the second of two books on adaptive reuse in Asia. Lynne lives in Toronto’s Annex, where she sits on the Annex Residents’ Association’s Heritage Committee and Planning and Development Committee. From the 17th floor of her condo, she dreams of living in an Ontario Cottage.