Laura Foster is an architectural historian specializing in the early modern and modern periods. Her research concerns the intersection of architecture and disciplinary institutions, drawing upon a dissertation that treated the design and influence of the House of Correction for Boys in Trastevere (architect Carlo Fontana, 1701-04), the first institution of its type to use cell blocks in imprisonment. Research for the dissertation was supported by the Lemmermann Foundation (1997); a William J. Fulbright Fellowship (1997-98); a Samuel H. Kress Travel Fellowship and Foreign Language Area Scholarship (1998-1999). Both her research and courses focus upon the relationship of power structures to the uses of built form and urban space. Beyond the relationship of patrons and architects, her courses explore the political and social effects of specific works. The formal language of architecture, whether in the symbol-laden church façades of Francesco Borromini or in the simple Rationalist geometries of the Fascist era, is always considered in its local contexts, from the perspective of those who commissioned the buildings and those who used them.