Résumé

[for a print-friendly pdf click here]

Education

American University, Washington, D.C. | Master of Arts, History, concentration in Public History, 2010.

Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pa. | Bachelor of Arts, History; Minors in Religion & French, 2006.

Experience

Assistant for Grassroots Advocacy
KaBOOM! | Washington, DC
April 2008 – present

  • Use the social networking site at KaBOOM! (connect.kaboom.org) as a way to outreach to a network of advocates for play (“Playmakers”) as well as facilitating discussions on best practices, community involvement, and showcasing playground-building resources through blogging and other social media practices.
  • Create and send a monthly e-newsletter to over 4,000 individuals about play and play advocacy, highlighting success stories, grant opportunities, trainings, and other best practices.
  • Oversaw outreach and managed logistics in various urban markets (Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans) for 11 total national Workshops Entirely on Play (“WE Play!”). Managed the budget for all WE Play! Trainings; trained summer interns and temporary employees; secured non-profit mailing status & set up mass mailings.

Contractor, Marketing & Communications
National Building Museum | Washington, DC
October 2009 – July 2010

  • Created graphics for the landing pages of the website, online articles, programs outreach, online exhibitions, and a timeline for the 30th Anniversary of the Museum.
  • Developed a social media presence for the museum on Twitter and Facebook, raised the follower count, solicited questions for the “For the Greener Good” lecture series about sustainability, and emerged as a source of information on architecture and the built environment.
  • Began as an Intern in the department in October 2009. Once internship was completed in January 2010, was hired as an independent contractor for programs related to social media, outreach and graphics.

Performance Interpreter & Historic Trades
Costumer for the First Person Interpretation Unit
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens | Mount Vernon, VA
February 2007 – September 2007

  • With the help of Collections and Research departments, created a new set of guidelines for costumes, established quality standards, and educated employees about the history and documentation for their clothing.
  • Performed in “Washington’s World” and “Engaging Encounters,” a first-person encounter interpretation around Mount Vernon as Eliza Parke Custis Law (Washington’s step-granddaughter).  Interpreted the history and process of the working 18th Century gristmill, distillery and Pioneer Farm on site.

Orientation Interpreter
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation | Williamsburg, VA
May 2006 – February 2007

  • Interpreted to guests and school groups at different sites around Williamsburg about topics ranging from colonial fashion, government, trades, and societal relations to help further immerse and educate them on life in the town during the Eighteenth Century. Managed access to buildings, trade shops and Revolutionary City programming in Colonial Williamsburg.

Research Assistant
Dr. Gabor Boritt, Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies | Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA
August 2002 – May 2006

  • Managed a team of 10 first-year research assistants, examining and cataloguing newspaper reports of the Gettysburg Address for the book The Gettysburg Gospel.  Researched, fact-checked, and wrote short biographies of quoted persons included in Lincoln Delineated, begun by Don Fehrenbacher and completed by Dr. Boritt.

Assistant Director, Student Scholarship Program
The Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College | Gettysburg, PA
September 2002 – July 2004

  • Assistant Director of a scholarship program where High School students attended a weeklong intensive seminar on the American Civil War at Gettysburg College, which was comprised of exclusive lectures, meetings with prominent historians, and numerous tours of battlefields.

Internships & Volunteer Experience

Intern, Marketing & Communications October 2009 – January 2010

National Building Museum | Washington, DC

  • [see above experience]

Internship
American Red Cross | Washington, DC
January 2009 – May 2009

  • With colleagues in the American University Public History program, developed a new historical engagement plan for the American Red Cross. Developed both an indoor and outdoor historical tour, the latter as an audio tour. Created trading cards for key members and locations of the Red Cross as a tangible takeaway for guests. Proposed a plan for an annual “Donor Day,” where donor of the Red Cross could visit and take historical tours, and developed outreach material for the program.

Intern
Warner Bros. Corporate Archive & Corporate Image Archive | Burbank, CA
May – August, 2004 and 2005

  • Designed, wrote captions for and assisted in installation of exhibits featuring props and costumes from Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
  • Catalogued, photographed, filed condition reports and ensured proper storage for props from recent Warner Bros. films and television shows, and entered them into the Archive props & materials database.
  • Cleaned and archivally re-housed original photographs and original camera negatives from the Archive’s collection of early motion picture photography.

Skills

web & design: Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Coda, some XHTML & CSS

web 2.0: twitter, flickr, facebook, blogging, folksonomy, social media.

language: French (proficient speaking, reading)