Deryck W. Holdsworth

Deryck Holdsworth grew up in Newcastle, England and holds graduate degrees from the University of British Columbia. After teaching at Mt Allison University and the University of Toronto, he worked as an editor on the Historical Atlas of Canada project before joining the Penn State geography department in 1987. He supervised 20 doctoral dissertations and 39 master’s theses, as well as 11 capstone projects in the MGIS program, before retiring from teaching in 2017 and now enjoys emeritus status while continuing to research and write. His interests in historical and urban historical geography include work on office space, commodity exchanges, industrial and folk housing, small town hotels, and the industrialization of Appalachia.  He has had a long-time interest in the applications of historical research, including work on the architectural and economic revitalization of Main Street, for the Heritage Canada Foundation (Reviving Main Street, 1985) as well as participation in heritage evaluation (member of the State Preservation Board in Pennsylvania, 1990-94) and heritage inventory (co-author with Jackie Melander of two National Register of Historic Places nominations for State College, PA).