A graduate of the University of Miami, Florida, USA, she is presently Head of the Architecture Department, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Malaya. A Director of Badan Warisan Malaysia since 2002, Helena is presently the consultant architect for the restoration of Stadium Merdeka. She attended the 3rd UNITAR Workshop on the Management and Conservation of World Heritage Sites (2006) in Hiroshima, Japan one component of which focussed on George Town’s bid for World Heritage Listing. Helena has been involved in education and cultural mapping programmes, and was a key educator in the 2006 Sub-regional South East Asian Teacher Training Workshop which was held in George Town and Balik Pualu, Penang. She is currently involved in researching and documenting the Dutch period shophouses in Malacca.