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Curator Biographies

Annie Anderson

Annie Anderson is the Senior Specialist for Research and Public Programming at Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, where she interprets America’s past and present prison systems. Annie is a cultural historian who studies race, gender, sexuality, liberation movements, vice, crime, and morality. She is the co-author, with John Binder, of Philadelphia Organized Crime in the 1920s and 1930s (Arcadia Publishing, 2014). Annie received her M.A. In American Studies from the University of Massachusetts Boston. 

Laura Bang

Laura Bang is the Digital & Special Collections Curatorial Assistant at Villanova University. For Home Before the Leaves Fall, Laura serves as social media editor, content contributor, and podcast producer. 

Wendy E. Chmielewski

Wendy E. Chmielewski is the George R. Cooley Curator of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.  She is a historian who has published on women in the nineteenth and twentieth century peace movements in the U.S. and Great Britain.  Chmielewski is currently working on a digital humanities project, tracing all U.S. women who campaigned for political office before 1920; and is a co-founder of the "Her Hat Was in the Ring" project available at herhatwasinthering.org

Alison E. Dolbier

Alison Dolbier has a M.Phil in History from The George Washington University and a BA in History and Economics from Boston College. As a Digital Library Intern at Villanova, Alison curated “Too Fast for Any Submarine”: The Last Voyage of the RMS Lusitania, an exhibit presented in Falvey Library from May through September, 2015. She also digitized World War I scrapbooks, postcards, newspapers, and other ephemera, and contributed to the Fallen of Philadelphia project. 

Jacob Downs

Jacob Downs holds a Bachelor of Arts in American History from Temple University. While in Undergraduate school he gained an appreciation for gender history which he continued into graduate school. He earned his Master’s degree from Rutgers University, in American history. His focus  was the effects of industrialization and urbanization on women during the late nineteenth century. Immediately after graduate school he worked for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center of the Humanities and served as the project manager and primary researcher for the Walking Encyclopedia Tour of Harrowgate. Today he works for the American Philosophical Society. 

Anna L. Fitzpatrick

Anna L. Fitzpatrick is a graduate student at Villanova University in the History Master of Arts program. With a concentration in public history, her primary research interest is in Irish American history, particularly during the American Civil War. This past summer, Anna had the privilege of studying in Ireland with the Abbey Theatre, where she examined the intersection of theatre and history in the 1916 Easter Rising. Anna's experiences in Ireland contextualized the 1916 Rising as she served as the primary curator for Falvey Library's physical exhibit on the Easter Rising.  A trained musician, Anna also enjoys playing the harp for weddings and historical events. For questions and comments, please feel free to contact Anna at, 

Michael Patrick Foight

Michael is Special Collections and Digital Library Coordinator at Villanova University, and editor and project organizer for the Home Before the Leaves Fall: a Great War Centennial Exhibition.  A former Infantry sergeant in the United States Army, Foight, a graduate of Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia brings a practical insight into the study of the strategy and tactics of the Great War.  

Charles Greifenstein

Since 2003 Charles Greifenstein has been at the American Philosophical Society and is currently Associate Librarian & Curator of Manuscripts.  Prior to his arrival at APS for nine years he was at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, last serving as Associate Librarian and Curator of Archives & Manuscripts.  Charles has an MA in literature from University of Arizona and an MS in information science from Drexel University.  Among his recent projects was mounting an exhibit on the APS and the Civil War.  He is currently working on a book about Philadelphia during World War One. 

Erica Harman

Erica Harman is the Manager, Archives and Records at Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, where she preserves documents and objects from the penitentiary’s past. Erica is a Certified Archivist who has been serving Eastern State Penitentiary for the last 12 years. She received her M.S. in Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archival Studies from Drexel University. 
 

Hillary S. Kativa

Hillary S. Kativa is the Archivist for Photographic and Moving Image Collections at the Othmer Library of Chemical History (Chemical Heritage Foundation). Prior to joining CHF, Hillary worked at a number of Philadelphia area cultural institutions, including the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and Temple University’s Urban Archives. She holds a M.A. in History from Villanova University, as well as an M.L.I.S. from Rutgers University. Hillary’s contributions to Home Before the Leaves Fall include articles on the significance of chemists and industrial chemistry to the war effort, as well as managing the project’s Tumblr blog (wwionline.tumblr.com)

Demian Katz

Demian is a Library Technology Development Specialist at Villanova University’s Falvey Memorial Library, where he coordinates the VuFind open source discovery project. When not developing software, he compiles e-texts for Project Gutenberg and manages two online bibliography projects, one dealing with dime novels and story papers (the Edward T. LeBlanc Memorial Dime Novel Bibliography, dimenovels.org) and another focusing on print-based interactive fiction (Demian’s Gamebook Web Page, gamebooks.org). 

Melissa M. Mandell

Melissa M. Mandell is a public historian who lives and writes in Philadelphia. Her most recent project is Doctor or Doctress: Explore American history through the eyes of women physicians, a digital history initiative of the Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center Archives and Special Collections. 

Ruth Martin

Ruth Martin was a Digital Library Intern at Villanova University in 2014, where she helped digitize material related to the Great War, including the Gaelic American. Her primary focus, however, was the creation of the database, "The Fallen of Philadelphia", a collaborative effort to gather information on service persons from the Philadelphia area who died in the Great War. Ruth holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Sociology. She is also the owner of Heritage Reports (www.heritagereports.com) a public history research firm.

Brian McDonald

Brian McDonald holds an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh.  His recent essays and reviews have appeared in Journal of Modern Literature, Gothic Studies and Philip Roth Studies. He processed the Hudson Review Archives for Princeton University and has worked as an editor, university instructor and as a sort of public relations assistant for an independent record label in his native Canada. As the Spring 2012 Villanova University Digital Library Intern, Brian curated a digital exhibition on the Irish-American nationalist and poet Joseph McGarrity entitled Man of Action, Man of Letters

Barbara Quintiliano

Barbara Quintiliano is Instructional Design Librarian and Team Leader for Nursing and Life Sciences at Villanova University where she provides instruction and research support to the faculty and students of the College of Nursing. In addition to an MLS,  Barbara holds an MA in French and continues to pursue her lifelong passion for French and francophone literature.

Becca Solnit

Becca Solnit holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from Dickinson College. While at Dickinson, she contributed to House Divided, a Civil War digital history project. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. As a Digital Library Intern at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Villanova University, and the Library Company of Philadelphia, Becca digitized World War I resources including propaganda posters, wartime photographs, and a scrapbook between German and American pen pals. 

Sandra L. Tatman

Dr. Sandra L. Tatman became Executive Director of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia in 2007, following a career teaching American architectural and art history at Towson University, where she also served as the Faculty Assistant to the Chair of the Art Department.  She was also Principal Investigator for the Athenaeum’s Philadelphia Architects & Buildings Project, a searchable and image-rich free online database now known as the American Architects & Buildings Project (www.americanbuildings.org).  Active in the national organization of the Society of Architectural Historians, Dr. Tatman served on its Board until 2014 and remains on its Membership and Diversity Committee, and on the Peterson Fellowship Committee, which sponsors research by graduate students into American architecture topics.  Dr. Tatman holds a Ph.D.  in Art History from the University of Delaware and both the M.L.S. and M.A. in Art History from the University of Oregon. 

Alexander Williams

Alexander Williams is the interim co-coordinator for the Social Sciences I Team at Villanova University, where he provides instruction and research support to the faculty and students of the communication, sociology and criminology departments. In addition to an MLS, Alexander holds an MA in English literature and is pursuing a career in writing. 

Anne M. Yoder

Anne M. Yoder is the Archivist for the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. In that role she processes the papers of individual peace leaders as well as the records of peace groups and organizations worldwide. Her efforts have ensured a digital presence online for thousands of items that highlight the Peace Collection’s unique holdings. Her area of expertise is on conscientious objection to war, particularly during World War I.

 


Last Modified: 2023-08-03 16:20:29