WER Architect, Sarah Devan, Featured in Women in AEC

November’s focus on architecture, engineering and construction gives Arkansas Money & Politics an opportunity to recognize prominent women in fields which traditionally have been male dominated. Many Arkansas professionals are proving that women can thrive in these industries, whether their role is on a job site or behind a desk.

WER senior associate, architect and conservator, Sarah Devan, is featured among these women leading in the AEC field in Arkansas. To see the full list, click here, and see Sarah’s profile below. Congratulations to Sarah and all the women featured!

Sarah Devan
Senior Associate, Architect and Conservator

Sarah Devan is a licensed architect and conservator who joined the project management team at WER Architects in January. She is a graduate of the architecture program at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Her early career was spent working for Jameson Architects in Little Rock, where she developed her love of historic preservation projects. Deciding to specialize in that field, she continued on to Columbia University in New York, earning a Master of Science in historic preservation. Following graduate school, she continued to work in New York City at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, where she worked on a number of exciting projects, including the New York Public Library restoration, The Juilliard School and the American Museum of Natural History. Relocating to Austin, Texas, in 2009, she continued to work on preservation projects but desired more hands-on experience. She joined her father, Bob Devan, as an apprentice in books and paper conservation and later worked with art conservators in the Los Angeles area, including Rosa Lowinger’s RLA Conservation of Art & Architecture and Griswold Conservation Associates. There, she developed a love of performing hands-on conservation treatments on both historic and contemporary art and sculpture. In 2015, she joined Architectural Resources Group in LA, where she combined her two passions of historic preservation and art conservation working on a wide variety of projects, including the Eames House, LA Union Station, the Norton Simon Museum and Wayfarers Chapel. She now brings a wealth of materials knowledge and more than 20 years’ experience back to Arkansas and can provide considerable expertise about technical reports and conditions assessments, historic structure reports and master plans, materials testing and historic finishes analysis, and restoration and rehabilitation projects.