The combination of learned theory and hands-on work provided by AU has allowed me to pursue a diverse and interesting career path in public history and the museum world. I utilized my time in graduate school to maximize internship opportunities and pursue development work at the Smithsonian Institution, grants management at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and museum education at Tudor Place Historic House and Garden. After graduation, I worked as a contractor at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum where I helped staff prepare for the exhibit Jubilee: African American Celebration. Next, I moved to a permanent position at a small exhibit design firm in Virginia called The Design Minds, where I served as a Content Developer. My job included research, exhibit planning, label writing, project management, and proposal writing for clients ranging from the National Park Service to the Alexandria Sanitation Authority. Three years—and my third job!—later, I found my way back to the Institute of Museum and Library Services and I am currently a Program Specialist for the Museums for America and Native American/Native Hawaiian Museum Services Program grants.

As an undergraduate history major at Douglass College, Rutgers University I enjoyed both coursework and research on various history topics. However, upon graduation, I began a career in public relations, which paid well, but was not associated with history. Several years later, missing my old major, I entered the graduate history program at American University. I chose to concentrate on public history with an objective of ultimately securing a position in libraries and/or archives. While at AU, I worked for over two years in the Department of Archives and Special Collections at Bender Library, participated in archives internships and projects through the History Department, and took formal classes in archives education thanks to AU's relationships with the University of Maryland and Catholic University. Armed with my master's degree and graduate training, I first worked as a project archivist on the PNC-Riggs Bank Collection at George Washington University, a job I literally dreamed about, and currently hold a position as a project archivist at the University at Albany. Today my responsibilities include arranging, describing, and preserving records from manuscript collections, providing reference services for researchers, and supervising graduate and undergraduate student efforts in the department. In addition to applying daily insights from my archives education, my job requires that I regularly call upon my interdisciplinary graduate skills in exhibit development, interpretation and traditional history research and writing. My very fulfilling and enjoyable second career would not be possible without all of my training and experiences at AU.

My interest in public history began with my undergraduate degree in history from The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA where I realized that my passion for the past was inextricably linked with the stories and material culture that had been left behind.  Immediately after graduating I enrolled in American University for my masters degree in history concentrating in public history. My time at American provided a variety of different skill sets from working with digital and new media, to writing for different audiences. These skills coupled with practical internships at the Smithsonian, the British Museum, and the National Park Service, helped me to expand my knowledge base and further define my career goals. Since graduation in 2006 I have worked at the National Trust for Historic Preservation managing online content for Forum, the preservation professionals membership program. In this capacity I get to look at public history  through practical applications to saving places. In addition to my work with Forum and training programs, I also write for the PreservationNation.org blog. You can learn more about my work through my personal blog here.

A few weeks after graduating with my MA in Public History in May 2011, I began working for the District of Columbia Public School system (DCPS) in the Office of Curriculum and Instruction. There, I manage a Teaching American History (TAH) grant that provides professional development and graduate-level coursework to DCPS teachers. She also contributes history content knowledge and helps design professional development services for DCPS social studies teachers. AU’s public history program prepared me for a variety of jobs after graduating; the structure of the program gave me a broad knowledge base while still allowing me to develop the projects and professional skills that interested me. The TAH grant is a 3-5 year grant with DCPS. After that time, I contemplated moving on to a PhD and/or pursuing other “front-of-the-house” public history jobs, such as museum education, public programming, or museum curation.

After finishing my MA in Public History in the spring of 2011, I began pursuing a PhD in 20th U.S. History at American University. As a public history student, I developed a keen interest in the digital humanities, particularly in how new media provides novel opportunities for the public to explore cultural institutions and meet the experts who "curate" the past. Currently, I work as a web design intern for both the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum.

While working on my MA in History at American University in 2007, I began volunteering at the American Red Cross. Initially it was part of a class, but I enjoyed giving tours of the historic national headquarters building and continued to do so after the semester ended. Several months later I started an internship in the historical resources department and was hired to a full time position shortly after that. My job has three main components. I manage the tour program, work in the archive, and assist with developing exhibits throughout the headquarters space. Through my position I recruit and train volunteers, respond to research requests, process collections, and interact with the public. Without my experiences and training at American University, I would not be successful in my current position. The skills I acquired in interpretation, exhibit design and development, and collections management have served me well and I continue to use them every day.

Since graduating from AU in May 2011, I am continuing to work for the National Park Service at Arlington House. I am also working as a researcher at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The public history program at American University has given me invaluable experiences working in the field. My practicum project and internships gave me the ability to put theory into practice and made me more marketable in the job market. View my online portfolio here.

My passion within the field of public history is public interpretation. I began my career in public history at Ferry Farm, George Washington's boyhood home, which is a developing historic site with a focus in public archaeology. Directly interacting with the public is very important to me and I have worked as an interpretive guide for over ten years. While completing my MA in art history with concentrations in architectural history and museum studies I began working at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond (VHS). At the VHS I worked with the museum collection eventually working my way up to assistant registrar. When I began the PhD program at American University my intention was to seek a higher-level curatorial and museum administrative positions. Presently I am a PhD candidate at AU and work as an historian for a cultural resources management firm in D.C.

I graduated from AU in 2006 with an MA in History with a concentration in Public History. I am now a 4th year PhD Candidate in American Studies at Brown University. My dissertation focuses on a topic I started at AU -- the intersection of race and space in the formation of Los Angeles’s Chinatown at the turn of the twentieth century. As a graduate student at Brown, I continued to pursue my interest in public history and museum work by co-curating three exhibitions: Chow Mein, Chicken Wings, and Cheeseburgers: Recalling Downcity Chinese in the Postwar Period at the Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI, and the Chinese Storefront Library in Boston, MA; Food on the Move at the Culinary Arts Museum; and Remember the Old Times: Cape Verdean Community in Fox Point, 1920 to 1945 at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage in Providence, RI. I was recently hired as an Assistant Managing Editor for Digital Humanities Quarterly, an open-access and peer-reviewed online journal discussing digital media in the humanities, and I also serve as the co-chair of the Student Committee for the American Studies Association. The breadth of experiences and knowledge I gained during my time at AU helped prepare me to fill these varied roles and continue to have a lasting impact on my career goals.

I work with the National Park Service's Department of Cultural Resources in Washington, D.C. Now at NPS for three years, I was hired as part of a long-term digitization project focusing on documentation and photographs for the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark programs. I also perform tasks in public outreach and interpretation using social media, writing and creating website features, and working on print publications. Concurrently, I work part-time for the International Spy Museum as a museum educator. There, I work specifically with Youth Education programs. The mission: teach students, and sometimes their parents, the tradecraft skills of espionage and while exploring one of the most unique D.C. museums. As chair of the American Association of Museum's Emerging Museum Professionals D.C. chapter, I organize monthly networking and professional development opportunities through behind-the-scenes tours of D.C. museums and cultural institutions. More information on Emerging Museum Professionals can be found at www.facebook.com/dcmetroemp.

I am currently pursuing my PhD in history at American University. My areas of interest are modern American history, women and gender, and visual and material culture, specifically fashion history. I am working on my dissertation, which focuses on how society used the concept of “glamour” to recruit women into the military during World War II, and in turn how servicewomen interpreted those messages. I am also consulting on various public history projects. Presently, I am developing a program for the Securities Exchange Commission Historical Society on Hollywood’s depiction of financial regulation. View my online portfolio here.

I earned my bachelor's degree in history from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and my MA in history with a concentration in public history from American University. I am currently working as the assistant program director for education at Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site. Like many people working in the field of public history, my daily responsibilities vary. The main responsibilities of my job, though, are centered around the interpretation of Eastern State Penitentiary for children and families. I am currently working to make our school tours more interactive and to make them more useful and accessible for teachers. I also have partnered with local schools and community organizations, helping kids to understand our history, as well has how we learn it. My training in public history at American University was invaluable, in understanding the basics of interpretation, how the public views museums, and how they connect with history. I use my training and experience that I gained at American every day, researching and developing programs for and with the public that will interest and engage them with their history, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of those programs. Of course, my favorite part of my job is what drew me to the field in the first place -- interacting with the public, sharing the site's history, and learning from those who were here when it was a working penitentiary.

I currently work as the Education Associate at Mount Vernon. Much of my position is focused on teacher outreach and program development. I facilitate our Teacher’s Institute every summer, all regional teacher workshops and all leadership programs. I have also spent a lot of my time at Conference meeting new teachers and helping them discover what Mount Vernon has to offer. My position has allowed me to build strong communications and personal skills and I look forward to continuing to support Mount Vernon’s main mission.

I earned my undergraduate degree in history from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where I developed a special interest in Civil War history. After spending a summer as an intern at President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home — an historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, DC — I also became interested in the fields of preservation and public history. After graduating from Dickinson, I worked in the National Trust’s membership office for a year before enrolling in American University’s Public History program. My time at American was unique and useful because of my focus on public history. Being in Washington, DC offered endless opportunities including internships, field work, guest professors, and more. At American, I participated in a number of internships, including working with other AU students to revise the historical tour program at the American Red Cross Headquarters Building. I also developed lesson plans for the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places program. After graduating from American, I came back to the National Trust as their full-time grants and awards coordinator, working with grantees and awardees across the country to share their stories and successes in saving places that matter to them. It was through my training and coursework at AU that I gained the skills necessary for such a position. My time at AU taught me how to share my love of history with the public in ways that I never realized were possible. View my online portfolio here.

As a graduate student in American University’s Public History program, I interpreted the past to cultural tourists at the National Park Service's C&O Canal in Great Falls, Maryland, helped construct a furnishing plan for Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial’s slave quarters and winter kitchen, and built a website documenting the evolution of Milwaukee’s brewing industry in the Cold War Era. During the 2010 - 2011 academic year, I worked as a web-designer for the National Museum of American History’s upcoming American Enterprise exhibition (2014). Upon graduation, l began designing and building a community-based website for the Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Community Museum. Currently I reside in Milwaukee, WI and work as a new media consultant specializing in historical interpretation. View my online portfolio here.

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