Pamela M. Henson
Director, Institutional History Division
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Pamela M. Henson is director of the Institutional History Division of the Smithsonian Institution Archives. She is responsible for research and writing on the history of the Smithsonian and an oral history project with Smithsonian staff. Her exhibits include "Smithson to Smithsonian: The Birth of an Institution" and "Expeditions: Smithsonian Research in Latin America." Currently, she is co-curating an exhibit on Charles Darwin for the Smithsonian Institution Libraries Gallery in 2009 and an exhibit for the 100th anniversary of the National Museum of Natural History in 2010. She is the author of numerous articles on the history of the Smithsonian and in the history of American biology.

The recording of Pam Henson’s session entitled "Lincoln’s Deathbed: Images of a Martyred President" is available for your review at any time.

Harry R. Rubenstein
Chair, Division of Politics and Reform
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History

Harry R. Rubenstein is currently the chair of the Division of Politics and Reform at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He shares responsibility for the political history, reform movements, civil rights, and labor history collections, and has curated or co-curated more than a dozen exhibitions including: Separate is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education; The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden; We the People: Winning the Vote. Author of several publications on political history and labor, Rubenstein most recently co-authored the book, The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden. He is currently working on a new exhibition and publication, Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life to open in January 2009.

The recording of Harry Rubenstein’s session entitled "Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life" is available for your review at any time.

Jeff Meade
School & Tours Coordinator
National Postal Museum

Jeff Meade is the School and Tours Coordinator at the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. He shares his personal interest in stamp collecting with museum visitors of all ages, and has recognized that classroom teachers need programs and materials that they can adapt to their own needs. His current work to promote the combination of physical stamp collecting with the Arago website will ensure that teachers all over the country will have access to the Postal Museum’s themes and collections.

The recording of Jeff Meade’s session entitled "Stamp Stories: Philatelic Images of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War" is available for your review at any time.

David C. Ward
Historian
National Portrait Gallery

David C. Ward is an historian at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., where he has curated exhibitions on Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln. He is currently planning an exhibition on John Coltrane (opening 2010). He is the author of Charles Wilson Peale: Art and Selfhood in the Early Republic (University of California Press, 2004) and many other scholarly publications on American culture and art.

The recording of Davd Ward’s session entitled "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln" is available for your review at any time.

Briana Zavadil White
School and Teacher Program Coordinator
National Portrait Gallery

Briana Zavadil White is the school and teacher program coordinator at the National Portrait Gallery. Briana began her career with NPG in 2002, while still in graduate school, by facilitating outreach programs in schools and senior centers and leading interactive tours for the Gallery’s traveling exhibitions. At the National Portrait Gallery, her work has evolved to include creating and managing in-Gallery school programs, designing and facilitating teacher workshops (both inside and outside the museum), developing teacher resource guides, and collaborating with other Smithsonian units.

In 1997, Briana earned her undergraduate degree in psychology, with a minor in art history, from the University of Virginia. She then received her master of arts in teaching with a concentration in museum education from the Museum Education Program at George Washington University in 2003.

The recording of Briana Zavadil White’s session entitled "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln – Classroom Applications" is available for your review at any time.

Tom Crouch
Senior Curator, Aeronautics Division
National Air and Space Museum

Tom Crouch is Senior Curator of Aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum. He holds a BA from Ohio University, an MA from Miami University and a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University. In 2001, the Wright State University awarded Dr. Crouch the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. A Smithsonian employee since 1974, he is the author or editor of more than a fifteen books and many articles for both popular magazines and scholarly journals. Most of his publications deal with the history of flight technology.

The recording of Tom Crouch’s session entitled "Mr. Lincoln’s Air Force" is available for your review at any time.

Shannon Thomas Perich
Associate Curator
National Museum of American History

Shannon Thomas Perich is an Associate Curator in the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History. She is the author of The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family, Photographs by Richard Avedon. Her research interests span the whole of the history of photography, from daguerreotype to digital.  Her current project is on the work of Dr. Dain Tasker’s X-rays of flowers from the 1930s to the 1950s.

The recording of Shannon Thomas Perich’s session entitled "Public and Private Photography During the Civil War" is available for your review at any time.

Lonnie G. Bunch III
Founding Director
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Historian, author, curator, and educator, Lonnie G. Bunch III is the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.  In this position he is working to set the museum’s mission, coordinate its fundraising and membership campaigns, develop its collections, and establish cultural partnerships.  Prior to his July 2005 appointment as director of NMAAHC, Bunch served as the president of the Chicago Historical Society, one of the nation’s oldest museums of history. Bunch has held several positions at the Smithsonian. As the National Museum of American History’s (NMAH) Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, he oversaw the curatorial and collections management staff and led the curatorial team that developed the major permanent exhibition American Presidency: A Glorious Burden. A prolific and widely published author, Bunch has written on topics ranging from the black military experience, the American presidency and all black towns in the American West to diversity in museum management and the impact of funding and politics on American museums.   In 2005, Bunch was named one of the 100 most influential museum professionals in the 20th century by the American Association of Museums.

The recording of Paul Gardullo and Candra Flanagan’s session entitled "The Enduring Emancipation: From President Lincoln to President Obama" is available for your review at any time.

Michelle M. Hammond
Smithsonian Teacher Ambassador
Maryland Teacher of the Year (2007)

Ms. Michelle M. Hammond, known for her tireless work to assist students in understanding that each one of them adds a great value to the world, is the 2007 Maryland Teacher of the Year. Ms. Hammond graduated from Hobart and William Smith College in New York in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. She obtained her Masters Equivalency in Reading at with Concentration Salisbury University in 2003. In2003, Ms. Hammond became a seventh grade teacher at Stephen Decatur Middle School in Worcester County where her position includes teaching integrated language arts. Hammond says, "each child can teach me about the way he or she learns, and because of this I have acquired the ability to make learning fun, connect it to real-life situations, and make learning tangible for every child." In a community that welcomes families, more Spanish-speaking she has graciously volunteered her translating skills to enroll new students, for parent conferences, for translating school procedures, and in helping Spanish speakers buy affordable transportation needed to commute to school. Additional noteworthy accomplishments include serving as mentor for new teachers and student interns, establishing a school dinner theater, lecturing on Attention Disorder (ADHD) Deficit Hyperactivity at Salisbury University, and serving her community through Delta Kappa Gamma. In 2005, the television station WBOC aired two segments on ADHD called "Learning Matters," featuring her personal story as a teacher and parent of two children, one of whom was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of six. Ms. Hammond proudly represents the hardworking and innovative teachers of Worcester County.

The recording of Michelle Hammond’s session entitled "Sharing of Lesson Ideas" is available for your review at any time.