A/Prof. Ursula De Jong

Associate Professor Ursula de Jong is an architectural historian in the School of Architecture and Built Environment at Deakin University. She is a scholar of the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival, and has researched and written much about the architect William Wilkinson Wardell (publication example: de Jong, Ursula (2011) William Wardell's 1859 St John's College - a rare realisation of Pugin's ideal Catholic College? Fabrications, vol. 20, no. 12, pp. 86-107, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, Qld). 

De Jong is a researcher of place (publication example: de Jong, Ursula (2015) Ebbs and Flows: water and place identity on the Nepean Peninsula, Victoria, Australia, Historic Environment, vol 27, no 3, Watermarks). She has been instrumental in the formation and master planning of Point Nepean National Park, Victoria. Since 2010 she has been President of the Nepean Conservation Group Inc.  In 2017 she was appointed to the National Parks Advisory Council (Victorian State Government), and as Chair of the National Parks Reference Committee. 
 
De Jong was lead investigator on the recently completed Australia Research Council Sea Change Linkage Grant (2011-2016), with colleagues Dr Robert Fuller and Dr David Beynon, which considered the impact of change on the coastal communities of Sorrento and Queenscliff in Victoria.  Intergenerational perceptions of the meaning of place were considered, local planning schemes were reviewed and recommendations put forward for the future protection of these historic coastal towns. The team have published a number of papers on the changes taking place in the built environment and the associated impacts on sense of place and neighbourhood character (recent publication example: de Jong, U. Fuller, R. and Beynon, D., ‘Reflections on place identity and change in the twin historic coastal towns of Queenscliff and Sorrento’, Historic Environment, vol 29, no 2, 2017, The people’s ground.)
 
Ursula de Jong is Deputy Chair of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria), being a Director on the Board since 2004.  She chairs the NTA(V) Heritage Committee [the advocacy arm of the NTA(V)], is deputy chair of the Buildings and Estates Committee, and founding member of the Aboriginal Advisory Committee. In 2010, de Jong was appointed as the NTA(V) member of the Heritage Council of Victoria, holding that position for six years (1 July 2010 - 30 June 2016).
 
In 2016 de Jong was appointed a member of the National Liturgical Architecture and Art Board (NLAAB) which is an Advisory Board to the Australian Catholic Bishops.

Ursula de Jong is a founding member of the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ). And a full member of ICOMOS (the International Committee of Monuments and Sites).