Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko joined the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine, as president/CEO in 2009, where she also co-leads their decolonization initiative and develops policies and protocols to ensure collaboration and cooperation with Wabanaki people. Previously, Cinnamon was the director of the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum in Crawfordsville, Indiana which received the National Medal for Museum Service.
Cinnamon served as a board member and later as treasurer for the American Association for State and Local History (2008-2014) and was the founding chair of their Small Museums Committee. She is a board member of Maine Humanities Council and a member of the Smithsonian Affiliates Advisory Council. In 2015, Cinnamon was elected to the American Alliance of Museums board of directors.
Publications: The Art of Healing: The Wishard Art Collection (Indiana Historical Society, 2004). Co-editor of Small Museum Toolkit, 6 vols (Altamira Press,2012). Museum Administration 2.0 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).
Cinnamon holds a BA in anthropology and art history from Purdue University, and is a graduate of the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) MA program in anthropology with a specialization in museum studies. Her 2016 TEDx talk, “We Must Decolonize Our Museums,” may be viewed at here. Download a full biography here.
- Day at a Glance Program
- Full Program for Empowering our Communities
- Getting to the Conference
- Speakers and Moderators at Empowering our Communities
- 2019 Conference Support and Sponsorships
- June 24 2019 Mass History Conference
Meghan Bailey is the Processing Archivist at University Archives and Special Collectionsin the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston. She received her MS in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archives Management from Simmons College and is certified as a Digital Archives Specialist by the Society of American Archivists. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art. When she is not wearing her archivist’s hat, she can be found painting in her art studio.
Ellen Berkland manages 450,000 acres of below-ground resources for the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Archaeology Program. Previously, she was the Archaeologist of the City of Boston from 1996 to October 2010. As the City Archaeologist she was responsible for 28 collections owned by the Commonwealth and the city’s own archaeological collections. She has conducted archaeological digs in the area beneath the Central Artery as well as on Boston Common, in the back lots of the Blackstone block and the Paul Revere House, and on the Harbor Islands, unearthing evidence of Boston’s history from when it was the Shawmut Peninsula to the twentieth century.
Pleun Bouricius is an independent public historian, writer, and photographer (swiftriverpress.com) and the author of AgathaO.com, a photo-blog and online shop that takes on nature, ideas, and art in equal measure. She is president and founding co-director of the Massachusetts History Alliance and volunteer curator of the Plainfield Historical Society. She has been one of the leading organizers of the Massachusetts History Conference for a decade. Previously, she was director of grants and programs at Mass Humanities, where she organized several statewide programs, and has been a carpenter and licensed contractor since 2003. Before that she drove an eighteen-wheeler, and taught in the History and Literature and Women’s History programs at Harvard University. Her projects include The Bog; Reading Frederick Douglass; Hidden Walls, Hidden Mills, a series of history/ecology adventures; Women, Enterprise, and Society, an early (2001) online guide to archival resources in women’s history resources at Baker Library (Harvard Business School).
Molly Brown is the Reference and Outreach Archivist at Northeastern University’s Snell Library. Molly holds a BA in History and English Literature from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. She received an MA in History and MLIS with an archives concentration from Simmons University. Molly’s work at Northeastern centers on community collaboration, archival access, and experiential learning with primary sources.
Blei Carbone joined Museum Textile Servicesin 2015. After earning her BA in Art History from Grinnell College in Iowa, she received an MA in Fashion and Textiles: History, Theory, and Museum Practice at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Since working at MTS, Morgan has come to specialize in wet cleaning and bleaching, mounting and framing flat textiles, and historic clothing. Morgan is also an avid instructor and knitter of laced shawls and scarves
Jonathan Cohen, MA/MSW, Program Officer at Greater Worcester Community Foundation. Jonathan received a bachelor’s degree in Religion from Colgate University, a Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Arts in Nonprofit Management from the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. He spent 24 years in camping and youth work, including three-and-a-half years as Director of the North American Federation of Temple Youth, and fourteen-and-a-half years as Director of the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Mississippi. After moving to Worcester, he spent a year as a project director at Brandeis University before joining the staff of the Greater Worcester Community Foundation. Jonathan Cohen grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi, and still can’t believe he now lives in New England. He is married to Valerie Cohen, who serves as Senior Rabbi at Temple Emanuel Sinai in Worcester.
Bob Damon is a public historian and independent museum professional. A former public high school history teacher and non-profit manager, Bob launched his own consulting firm, The PastWorks, six years ago, to work with clients inside and outside of the traditional museum field who are passionate about their histories and cultural assets. Earlier, Bob held positions as the Executive Director of the Wellesley Historical Society in Wellesley, MA., and as the Historic Site Manager and Director for Education and Interpretation for the Old North Foundation at the Old North Church in Boston. Currently, Bob is working with the City of Quincy and as the Director of the History and Visitors Program at the United First Parish Church in Quincy Center. Some of his previous clients include Athena Health in Watertown MA., the Doors to History collaborative, Minute Man and Boston National Historical Parks and the Franklin Institute of Technology in Boston.
Alejandra Dean joined the Massachusetts Archives as the Assistant Digital Records Archivist in 2017. She previously interned for the Bunker Hill Community College Archives, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting at WGBH in Boston, and the Boston City Archives. Alejandra holds an M.S. in Archives Management from the Simmons School of Library and Information Science and a B.A. in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard College. She is a co-chair of the New England Archivists (NEA) Preservica Roundtable and a co-chair of the Council of State Archivists State Electronic Records Initiative (SERI) Tools and Resources subcommittee.
Debra DeJonker-Berry has an MLS from Simmons College as well as a CAS in Digital Libraries from UIUC in Urbana/Champlain. She is currently the Director of one of the 2018 AIA/ALA Library Buildings of the Year, the Eastham Public Library. Debra has worked in many towns over the past 30+ years as a librarian, including Provincetown and Halifax MA. In each, she has enjoyed bringing teams of historical society members, Town Clerks, non-profits and community members together on digital projects – all with the intent of community building. Her favorite projects continue to be the Mass. Memory Road Show, the Digital Commonwealth / Internet Archives, the Provincetown History Preservation Project, and environmental educational opportunities made possible to the community through the LEED Building Program.
Charan Devereaux is interested in the intersection of community, history and art. Her projects explore communities or bring people together to learn about and/or support each other. Most recently, Charan served as Somerville Museum community curator for “Union Square at Work: Photographs, Stories and Music from Somerville’s Oldest Commercial District” which received a 2017 AASLH Leadership in History Award of Merit. The project included a series of 25 public concerts, talks and conversations reflecting on family businesses, immigration and economic history in the city.
Rosalind Everdell, the project director of Neighborhood Voices, has a MA in Community Economic Development and is the former Organizing Director and Deputy Director of Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. She has over 30 years of experience in the Dudley Street neighborhood and through engaging residents in the neighborhood revitalization efforts developed relationships with many families. One of her priorities was creating leadership development opportunities for young people. This project grew out of those experiences. She is currently on the board of the Dudley Street Neighborhood School and is a consultant with SOAR Management Consulting Group.
Joceline Fidalgo. Born and raised in the Dudley neighborhood, Joceline first got involved with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative(DSNI) as a youth member, when she co-founded the Dudley Youth Council and joined the Board of Directors as a youth member. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College with a major in Lusophone Studies modified with African & African-American Studies. Upon graduating, she received a Fellowship and lived in Cape Verde working with an international aid organization, BØRNEfonden. She speaks three languages: English, Cape Verdean Creole and Portuguese. After returning to the US in 2012, Joceline joined the DSNI as an AmeriCorps member, leading the youth mentoring program. Currently, Joceline is the Director of Resource Development, overseeing the fundraising and communications strategies of the organization. Joceline is also pursuing a Masters in Public Policy from Tufts University.
Kendra Taira Field is an award-winning historian and writer. She is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University, home of the African American Trail Project. In her 2018 book, Growing Up with the Country: Family, Race, and Nation after the Civil War, Field traces her ancestors’ migratory lives between the Civil War and the Great Migration. Her current project, “‘Things to be Forgotten’: A History of African American Genealogy,” traces the development of African American family histories and archival, genealogical, and memorial practices between emancipation and the present. Field’s recent articles have appeared in the Journal of American History, the Western Historical Quarterly, and Transition, and she has advised and appeared in historical documentaries including Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (2013) and “Roots: A History Revealed” (2016). Field received her Ph.D. in American History from New York University.
Susan Grabski, M.Ed., has been executive director of the Lawrence History Center(founded as the Immigrant City Archives is 1978), since 2011. She serves as a member of the MA State Historical Records Advisory Board, a Commissioner for the Essex National Heritage Area, and on the board of the Friends of the Lawrence Heritage State Park. In 2013, she co-authored Lawrence, Massachusetts and the 1912 Bread & Roses Strike, with Robert Forrant, Arcadia Publishing, Images of America Series. The LHC online exhibition, Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Two Months in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that Changed Labor History(http://tinyurl.com/m5z9bov), was one of seven exhibitions that were part of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) April 2013 launch in Boston.
Jonathan Green is the Clerk of the Massachusetts History Alliance. He is a public historian, archivist, and educator. He received his bachelor’s degree in History from Stonehill College and his Master’s in Public History from UMass Boston. Since 2010 he has worked as the Assistant Director of Archives and Digital Assets Manager at Stonehill College, where he also teaches courses in anthropology, environmental studies, and history. Between 2014 and 2018, Jon served as Curator for the Milton Historical Society, as well as caretaker for the Suffolk Resolves House, located in Milton, MA. From October 2016 to December 2017, Jon worked as the Digital Assets Project Manager at Plimoth Plantation. Although his research interests focus on Native American history and environmental history, Jon’s work as a public historian draws on a wide variety of historical topics including taverns and drinking in colonial America, the history of navigation in Massachusetts, and the role of photography in interpreting the past.
Kerri Greenidge is co-director of the African American Trail Project through Tufts’ Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD). She also serves as interim director of the American Studies Program through Tufts’ Consortium of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora. She holds a doctorate in American Studies from Boston University, and has taught at Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, and Emerson College. Her work includes historical research for the Wiley-Blackwell Anthology of African-American Literature, the Oxford African American Studies Center, and PBS. For nine years she worked as a historian for Boston African American National Historical Site in Boston, through which she published her first book, Boston Abolitionists (2006). Her forthcoming book, Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, which will be published by Norton this fall, explores the history of racial thought and African American political radicalism in New England at the turn of the century.
Jennifer Hall-Witt joined Mass Humanities as a Program Officer in September 2018. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Yale University (1996) and is the author of Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London, 1780-1880(2007) and essays exploring musical culture. She has taught Anglo-American women’s history, British and European history, and cultural history the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Denison University, and Smith College. She was the founding director of a summer humanities program for high school girls at Smith and has coordinated a summer foreign exchange program for middle-school youth through CISV, an international peace education organization. At Mass Humanities, she coordinates a family reading program and serves on the steering committee for the Mass History Conference, as well as shepherding grants through the application process.
Jessica Holden is the Reference Archivist in University Archives & Special Collectionsin the Joseph P. Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She also leads the department’s archival instruction program. Her involvement with the 1919 Boston Police Strike Project has included the coordination of volunteer researchers, working with graduate students on developing biographical essays, and providing outreach for and fielding reference requests related to the project. She holds a BA in English from the University of Georgia and an MS in Library and Information Science from Simmons University.
Michael W. Ibrahim, CFRE, is Program Manager for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Cultural Investment Portfolio, a $5 million grant program that supports 400 nonprofit arts, culture, humanities, and science organizations across the Commonwealth. In addition to grant making, Michael is responsible for the Council’s Organizational Resiliency strategies and initiatives for cultural organizations with annual budgets up to $150 million. This work includes providing direct consulting services, as well as managing sector-wide education services, group advising, financial health inventorying, capacity mapping, policy research, and cohort development, in order to help organizations build sustainable, adaptive, and innovative models of operation. Michael also produces the Council’s arts-nerd podcast,Creative Minds Out Loud, featuring diverse conversations with cultural leaders, artists, educators, and visionaries. Michael has designed arts management curriculum for several universities, and is currently on the graduate arts administration faculties at both Boston University and the University of Kentucky.
Fredie D. Kay is Founder and President of the Women’s Suffrage Celebration Coalition of Massachusetts. An attorney and advocate for women’s rights, she is a member of the Equal Pay Coalition of Massachusetts, participating in its successful effort to legislate the Equal Pay Act (2016). She serves on the Women’s Vote Centennial Initiative Task Force of the National Women’s Party, as well as the Votes for Women National Trail Committee of the National Collaborative of Women’s History Sites (NCWHS). Ms. Kay serves on the Board of Directors of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), the Advisory Board of the Community Dispute Settlement Center (CDSC), the Advisory Council of EMERGE Massachusetts, and the Advisory Committee of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA). She was a 2016-2017 Fellow in the Access to Justice Program, a project of the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission and the Lawyers Clearinghouse
Erin D. A. Kelly is a member of the Community Preservation Coalition’s Steering Committee. The Community Preservation Coalition is an alliance of open space, affordable housing, and historic preservation organizations working with municipalities to help them understand, adopt, and implement the Massachusetts Community Preservation Act (CPA). Erin has been with Preservation Massachusetts since 2004 and currently serves as Associate Director. She has worked on a range of projects from establishing the Circuit Rider program to legislative advocacy, partnership cultivation, and expanding educational offerings and resources. She currently serves as Secretary for the Board of the National Preservation Partners Network. Erin holds a Bachelor of Science in Historic Preservation from Roger Williams University and has a deep love of preservation, history, the arts and her tiny Southeastern MA hometown.
Evan Knight, Preservation Specialist with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, freely consults with libraries across the Commonwealth of all types and sizes to enhance collections management practices. Previously he worked as a bench conservator of bound and unbound materials at the Boston Athenaeum, Northeast Document Conservation Center, the Library of Congress, the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas, and the Municipal Archives of New York City. He received a Bachelor of Science from Washington University in St Louis and a Master of Science in Information Science and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Library and Archive Conservation from the University of Texas at Austin.
Marc Laplante is from Lawrence, Massachusetts where he is the longest serving city councilor in the city’s history. He graduated from Assumption College, the Massachusetts School of Law and passed the bar in 2006. Mr. Laplante worked on the legislative staff in Beacon Hill and the United States Congress. He is currently employed at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection where last year he was part of the team that received the highest award in state government for his contribution to the Lead in Schools Assistance Program. He is also the Governor’s appointee to the state’s Housing Appeals Committee. Councilor Laplante’s interest in WW1 and WW2 took him to Europe in 2017 and 2018 to remember the American soldiers from Lawrence who were killed during those wars. He is the 2019 Eartha Dengler History Award recipient from the Lawrence History Center.
Mary Ellen Lepionka is an independent scholar researching the history of Cape Ann from the last Ice Age to around 1700. She is a retired college instructor, textbook developer, and author with a Master’s in anthropology from Boston University and post-graduate work at the University of British Columbia. She taught anthropology and history at BU, Northeastern, and area colleges; participated in salvage archaeology in Ipswich, excavated an Iron Age Bantu refuge site in Botswana; and conducted fieldwork in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Her book, Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, has been published by the Text and Academic Authors Association. Mary Ellen is a member of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society and co-chair of the Gloucester Historical Commission. Her articles on the archaeology of Cape Ann have been published in the Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society; her essays on Cape Ann history appear online in Enduring Gloucester and Historic Ipswich.
Caroline Littlewood is Public History and Volunteer Research Coordinator in University Archives & Special Collections, Joseph P. Healey Library at University of Massachusetts Boston. She co-developed the 1919 Boston Police Strike Project’s online training course and now directs the final stages of volunteer research in preparation for the launch of a biographical database in September 2019. Caroline also coordinates the development of a video and instructional modules to support the Mass. Memories Road Show and similar participatory archiving events. She holds a Bachelor’s from Tufts University and a Master’s in History (Public History track) and Archives Certificate from the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Chris Madson is a high school English Language Arts teacher at the Edward M Kennedy Academy for Health Careers in Boston, where he has implemented a school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports system, designed project-based curriculum that connects students with arts and archival organizations, and advocated for and implemented inclusion curriculum for students with IEPs. Chris holds a B.A. in English from Hamline University, a MEd through the Boston Teacher Residency Program and the University of Massachusetts Boston, and a PhD in literature from the University at Buffalo.
Erica McAvoy is the executive director of Lexington Historical Society, which operates three historic house museums and presents year-round community programming. In her position she oversees a staff of five regular employees and about thirty part-time museum educators. Prior to working in Lexington, Erica served as the Executive Director of Wellesley Historical Society. She earned a BA in history from Salem State University and is in the final stages of completing her master’s thesis at UMass Boston on seating in Boston’s early eighteenth-century Anglican churches. She recently completed a certificate program in Nonprofit Management and Leadership through Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.
Daniel McCormack, CA, has served as Archivist/Records Manager for the Town of Burlington (MA) since 2002. In this capacity he is responsible maintaining for the historical and business records of the town and provides technical advice to the town’s Historical Commission. Previously he was adult services reference librarian at the Brockton Public Library. He holds masters degrees from the University of Massachusetts-Boston and Simmons College. Currently he serves as chair of the Privacy and Confidentiality Section of the Society of American Archivists and on the Steering Committee of SAA’s Human Rights Archives section. He also serves on the Advisory Board of NEDCC. Previously, he was a newspaper reporter and editor in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. He has been a member of the Massachusetts State Historical Advisory Board since 2013.
Giordana Mecagni is Head of Special Collections and University Archivist at Northeastern University. Prior to that she held various positions at Associated Grant Makers in Boston, the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe/Harvard, and at Harvard Medical School’s Center for the History of Medicine. She holds a BA in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of New Hampshire, and an MLIS with an archives concentration from Simmons. Giordana lives in East Boston, is interested in urban agriculture and urban planning, and plays the Underwood 5 in the Boston Typewriter Orchestra.
Daniel Neff is the Curator of the Fairbanks House Museumin Dedham, MA – the oldest wood frame structure in North America, built in 1637. Daniel has 12 years of museum experience, a master of arts in public history from Northeastern University, and a museum studies certificate from Tufts University. He is co-chair of the New England Museum Association’s Registrars and Collections Care Specialists Professional Affinity Group. Through years of research he has become an expert on American colonial history, medical history, weird history, and the history of marginalization and othering. When he isn’t busy keeping a 400 year old building standing, giving tours, or researching the Fairbanks family history, he is working on writing several books about local history and museum practices.
Joanna Shea O’Brien received an M.F.A. from Columbia University in nonfiction writing and a B.A. from Marymount University in English Literature. Her oral history work includes the September 11, 2001 Oral History Narrative and Memory Project, the Boston Marathon Bombing Digital Archive: WBUR Oral History Project, a pilot project with Kristi Girdharry and the LDB Peace Institute on Community Resilience and Homicide in Boston, and writing for and speaking at oral history conferences. Joanna has worked in communications and research for U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, the International Rescue Committee, the Peace Corps, the JFK Library Foundation and the Boston Women’s March for America. Follow her on twitter @jsheaobrien or view her website.
Regina Pagani is the Arts, Humanities, and Experiential Learning Librarian at Northeastern University’s Snell Library. She holds a BA in History and English Literature from St. John’s University and an MLIS with an archives concentration from Simmons University. She is interested in experiential learning opportunities across the library’s collections, services, and spaces.
Eric Peterson serves in the Board of the Mass History Alliance. After learning that a degree in History from Vassar College didn’t necessarily guarantee a job, Eric apprenticed as a stone mason. This skill gave him the chance to serve in the Peace Corps building schools in Africa and later led to a twenty-year career in the landscaping field in San Francisco. Returning home to Boston with a young family, Eric rediscovered his love of history and museums and enrolled in the Museum Studies Program at Harvard University’s Extension School. While earning his Master’s, he volunteered at the nascent Metropolitan Waterworks Museum in Chestnut Hill and was instrumental in its opening in 2011. Serving as Director of Operations, he has helped guide a fledgling institution past early challenges to a place where it can thrive as a unique cultural gem.
Katherine Petta is a high school English teacher at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Boston. Katherine holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and sociology from Fairfield University and a Master’s degree in Education from Boston College. She holds a doctorate from the Leadership in Urban Schools Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Sarah-Jane Poindexter is Roving Archivist for the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board. In this position she travels throughout the Commonwealth to support and advise cultural heritage institutions on the long-term preservation and archival management of their collections. Prior to her work in Massachusetts, Ms. Poindexter was Manuscript Archivist and Co-Director of the Oral History Center at the University of Louisville Archives and Special Collections and Curator of Special Collections at the Filson Historical Society. She has a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Simmons College, where she also serves as an adjunct faculty member for Oral History.
Michael R. Potaski serves on the board of the Massachusetts History Alliance. After serving in the US Army Intelligence Corps in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and in the Netherlands, he worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, retiring in 2004 as the Director of the Department of Defense Indications and Warning Intelligence Staff. Returning to his birthplace, Michael currently serves on the Historical Commission and is Treasurer of the Uxbridge Historical Society, volunteers at the Uxbridge Free Public Library responding to queries about local history and genealogy, and is finalizing a book titled “Uxbridge, Massachusetts in the Eighteenth Century.” He has authored several monographs and presentations on local history and historical characters and is currently participating on a team finalizing an application to the National Park Service to have Uxbridge included in its “Network to Freedom” listing of places associated with the Underground Railroad. He holds degrees in Political Science and a graduate certificate in National Security Studies.
Michelle Ryan is the History and Social Science Content Support Lead at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Prior to joining the DESE team, Michelle most recently served as a teacher and department chair at Randolph High School. She is an award winning teacher and the proud recipient of the 2015 Milken Educator Award. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Michelle received a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction. Additionally, she has earned a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study in Educational Leadership from the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her interests include curriculum and instruction, educational equity, school culture, organizational behavior, professional development, and educational leadership.
Clara Silverstein is the Community Engagement Manager at Historic Newton. As part of her role, she organizes and occasionally leads walking tours. A former journalist, she has published a memoir about school desegregation, an historical novel, and three cookbooks. She earned a M.A. in Public History from the University of Massachusetts Boston and a B.A. in American Studies from Wesleyan University.
Erika Slocumb (B.A. in Social Justice and an M.A. in Labor Studies) is an Afo American Studies Ph.D. candidate at UMass Amherst. Erika’s research has focused on the intersections of labor and race, community education, class consciousness, and the efficacy of collective workforce and community action in influencing social change. Erika has worked within different community organizations around community empowerment specifically within Black communities and other communities of the global majority. Currently she is working on uncovering the history of Black people in Holyoke Massachusetts, including creating the Black Holyoke Wayfinder for Holyoke’s archives.
Katherine Stevens joined Mass Humanities as a Program Officer in October 2018. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University in American Studies (2014). Before joining Mass Humanities, she taught early American history, African American history, and environmental history at Oglethorpe University. She has worked on projects to diversify liberal arts curricula and to make the presence of African Americans and the history of enslavement in New England more central to public memory. At Mass Humanities, she oversees the Reading Frederick Douglass Program as well as shepherding grants through the application process.
Earl Taylor has been the President of the Dorchester Historical Society since 2002. He earned his Master’s degree in Library Science from Simmons College and served as a rare book cataloger at the Boston Public Library and later worked at the American Antiquarian Society, John Carter Brown Library, then Director of Library Systems at Boston College. Since 1987 his day job has been in residential mortgage lending. Earl has been a Dorchester resident since 1979. He is a collector of all items relating to the history of Dorchester, including post cards, maps, pewter, pottery, books and photographs. In addition to articles in the field of bibliography, he has published a book of Dorchester postcards of the early 20th century. Mr. Taylor created and maintains a website DorchesterAtheneum.org devoted to the history of Dorchester, and he sends an e-mail every weekday to hundreds of recipients containing the Dorchester Illustration with a description of the illustration and of its historical context. He is one of the founders of the Tide Mill Institute and is currently serving as treasurer of the Massachusetts History Alliance.
Anthony Vaver is the Local History Librarian at the Westborough Public Library. He has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and an M.L.S. from Rutgers University. He has served as the Humanities Librarian and the Special Collections Librarian at Brandeis University, has written two books on early American crime, and now thinks about the future of local history programs and collections.
Bill Wallace has been the Executive Director of Worcester Historical Museum for four decades. He came to Worcester after serving as the CEO of the Oswego County (N.Y.) Historical Society and prior to that the assistant registrar at Old Sturbridge Village. While at Worcester Historical Museum he managed the restoration of Salisbury Mansion (1772) to reflect life in Worcester in the 1830s and moved the Museum from its small original home to the former Horticultural Hall in downtown Worcester. A fan of cemeteries, he can also be found from time-to-time at a Disney property.
Meg Winikates, Director of Engagement, New England Museum Association, has more than fifteen years’ experience in museums and education. Immediately prior to joining the NEMA team, she worked as the Programs Coordinator for the Art & Nature Center at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. She has also worked at the Discovery Museums, the Longfellow National Historic Site, the Paul Revere House, and the New England Aquarium, among others. Meg graduated from Harvard with a B.A. cum laude in English Literature & Language, completed the Tufts museum studies program, and received her master’s in arts administration from Boston University. She currently serves as board member for the Museum Education Roundtable and secretary, as well as serving on the leadership council for MassCreative. Aside from her love for museums, Meg also enjoys writing, travel, jewelry design, scuba diving, playing flute, and taking in a night of theater whenever she can.
Dan Yaeger, Executive Director, New England Museum Association, has been NEMA’s executive director since April 2010 and has a 20-year history with museums, most recently as the director of the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation in Waltham, Massachusetts. He has served as a marketing communications consultant to institutions including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Museum of Fine Arts/Boston, Portland Museum of Art, Currier Museum of Art, Mariner’s Museum of Virginia, Old Sturbridge Village, John F. Kennedy Library, and Plimoth Plantation. He has also been a consultant to the publishing industry and to hospitality businesses throughout the U.S. Dan has been adjunct professor, guest lecturer, advisor, and fellow at Tufts, Harvard, Brown, Bentley, and Lasell. He holds a BA from Gettysburg College and a master’s degree from Harvard. In his spare time, Dan has been a freelance writer, professional cartoonist, and was founder of the Essex Base Ball Club, a vintage team which plays by the rules of 1848.