Robin Autry, Ph.D., Universityof Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Robin is a PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She uses comparative historical sociology to study the politics of museum development in the United States and South Africa. She presented her dissertation research on African American and South African Museums in Chicago, and Madison.  She earned her Master’s Degree in 2004 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after graduating with honor’s from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1999.

Brian J. Carter, Education Director, Northwest African American Museum, Seattle, WA
Brian is the Education Director at Northwest African American Museum. He is responsible for developing, implementing and overseeing the full range of the museum’s educational and interpretive programming. Brian graduated from the University of Washington, Seattle, and earned his Masters of Art in Museology in 2006.

Lakita Edwards, Education Specialist, National Park Service, Harpers Ferry Center, Harpers Ferry, WV
Lakita is the Education Specialist at Harpers Ferry Center and Media Design Center for the park service. She received her BA in Art History and Psychology from Simon’s Rock College, and an EdM in Arts Education from Harvard University. As a student, conservation association alumni, Lakita worked as a cultural resources intern at Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic site during college and participated in the bold pilot project in volunteerism called the North American Community Service Project shortly after graduate school. She is currently working on the team repurpose media from the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail Visitor Centers.

Marisa Louie, Exhibitions Coordinator, Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco, CA
Marisa is the Exhibitions Coordinator, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area; she received a BA in American and Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her undergraduate senior thesis, “Mounting Gold Mountain’: Examining the Exhibitions of Chinese American Museums” was published in the 2006 volume of the journal, Chinese America History and Perspectives. Marisa has had previous volunteer experience in interpretive education and collections management with the National Park Service and California State Parks.

Elizabeth Schexnyder, Curator, National Hansen’s Disease Museum, Carville, LA
Elizabeth is a graduate of Louisiana State University, Masters in Library and Information Science, University Southwestern Louisiana, BA, Humanities, Fine Arts Major, French Minor. She is responsible for writing policies and procedures for the Museum, creating exhibits, developing tours, cataloging collections and organizing special events and is currently preparing for AAM accreditation.

Andreina Castillo, Program Coordinator, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Andreina has served as the Program Coordinator in the Department of External Affairs for the past three and a half years were she handles community relations and assist with legislative outreach initiatives, with an emphasis on diverse communities in Philadelphia. A native of Venezuela and fluent in Spanish, she graduated with a BA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, DC, and has had an array of experience working for technology companies, cultural and international organizations, and foreign governments.