People

James K. Reap is a Professor in the Master of Historic Preservation Program. He is director of the University of Georgia Croatia Study Abroad Program (2007-13, 2018-) and is an affiliated faculty member of the UGA African Studies Institute. Professor Reap taught law and heritage conservation as a Fulbright Scholar at the Jordan University of Science and Technologyand as a visiting professor at the  Orenburg Institute of the Moscow State Law Academy. In 2016, he was appointed by President Obama to the State Department’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee.

He is the former Program Coordinator of the MHP program, President and current Secretary General of the Committee on Legal, Administrative and Financial Issues and a member of the Committee on Shared Built Heritage of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and a Fellow and Legal Advisor ofUS/ICOMOS, serving on the Executive Committee. He has worked on preservation issues in Eastern and Southern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and the Caribbean.

Professor Reap is currently a board member of the United States Committee of the Blue Shield and a past board member of the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and Preservation Action. He has provided training and technical assistance to preservation commissions throughout the United States. Professor Reap has served as chair of the preservation commissions in the City of Decatur and DeKalb County and as vice chair in Athens, Georgia. He is a founding member of both the Georgia Alliance and National Alliance of Preservation Commissions, and is a former board member of both organizations. He has served previously as President of theAthens (Georgia) Historical Society and theAthens-Clarke Heritage Foundation (now Historic Athens).

His background in planning includes service as Georgia’s first regional preservation planner and as Deputy Executive Director of the Northeast Georgia Area Planning and Development Commission (now Northeast Georgia Regional Commission). He has served in several Georgia state agencies including Departments of Archives and History, Natural Resources, and Technical and Adult Education (now the Technical College System of Georgia).