Sara Janelle graduated from the UF Museum Studies Program in Fall 2024.  Her primary research focus throughout her time in the program was on museum education and how to successfully integrate the public school system with the museum field. Her research reflected this focus and led her to complete a Master’s Project in Lieu of Thesis titled “Designing for the Collection: Educational Programming at the Matheson History Museum.”

Rebecca Lipkin graduated from the UF Museum Studies program in the Fall of 2024. She focused her graduate research on the use of DEAI practices in relation to exhibition design as well as the newer field of Micromuseology. During her time in the program she collaborated with peers to present exhibit proposals titled “Lynching in Alachua County” and “In the Pines: The Shadow of the Turpentine Industry” to the Alachua County Community Remembrance Project. Her research interests culminated in her project-in-lieu-of-thesis titled “What’s the Buzz About Micromuseums? Using Universal Design to Emphasize Accessible Exhibitions and Collections at the McGinnis Beekeeping Museum.” She plans to pursue similar work in the field as a museum professional.

Gavin Schrantz graduated from the UF museum studies Program in the fall of 2024.  Her primary focus during her time in the program was on difficult history and community centered approaches to museum work. Her research reflected this focus and led her to complete a Master’s Thesis titled “Difficult History in Maritime Museums.” She plans to continue this work in the field as a museum professional.

Sarah Leilani Sissum graduated from the UF museum Studies Program in December of 2024. During her time with the program, she focused on heritage work as a tool for community healing and empowerment. Her overarching research focus has been on Hawaiian heritage preservation, especially as it has been affected by active processes of colonization. Her studies culminated in her Master's thesis entitled "Aloha Away from the 'Āina: Diasporic Kānaka-Informed Considerations for Museal Praxis in the Continental United States." She hopes to contribute academically, professionally, and personally to ongoing efforts toward Hawaiian sovereignty and heritage prosperity.

Korinne is excited to be a double gator. She attended the University of Florida where she majored in Anthropology and minored in Zoology, Medical Anthropology, and Leadership. In undergrad, she focused mainly on human osteology and biological anthropology. She had not considered a career in the museum world until her last semester at UF where she happened upon a new course that introduced museum studies and the endless career opportunities within a museum. Korinne felt like she finally found the missing link between wanting to be both a scientist and a public servant. Inspired, she applied to an internship at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History as the Special Events Coordinator for the intern cohort that summer. Feeling like she could never be a scientist for not being “good” at the hard sciences like chemistry or physics, this experience completely changed her mind and left her feeling like she could really make a difference as a woman in the field of natural history. Korinne feels like this program has the potential to provide her with the experience needed to not only be a good scientist, but an activist in the community as well.

Martha Grace earned her bachelor’s degree in Art History (with a concentration in Modern and Contemporary art) from Winthrop University in Spring 2020. Although an avid museum-goer, Martha Grace did not discover her interest in museum work until she began working as a Gallery Assistant with the Winthrop University Galleries. While in this position, she explored many career avenues—ultimately finding a home in public programming and museum education. This interest was further informed by a number of experiences: two education internships with the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC and a non-profit partnership with the Smithsonian Museum to provide art education to neurodiverse children and teens. These experiences informed her research interest in accessibility and inclusion for disabled individuals. Martha looks forward to the interdisciplinary nature of this program, allowing her to take several courses across UF’s different colleges.

Ivy earned her BA in Anthropology with a minor in International Studies. Her interests have always centered around investigating the status quo, activism, and understanding people. Growing up, Ivy had the opportunity to travel around the world, meet different people, and visit many MANY museums. Ivy chose to pursue a Museum Studies degree after taking an introductory museum course taught by a program alumnus, in undergrad. For the last five years, she has done a little bit of everything. Most recently she interned at the A Quinn Jones Museum and Cultural Center, created the COTA Proposal Studio's Research Funding Opportunity Database, and worked with Alachua County community members and UF Museum Studies classmates to create the Alachua County Digital Black Heritage Trail. Ivy's career goal is to be of service to the needs and wants of her community wherever she is, to the best of her ability. 

Minji has a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Florida. She has minors in mass communications and anthropology. During her time as an undergraduate, Minji started working as a research assistant at the Florida Museum of Natural History and decided to pursue her interest in the Museum field further by obtaining a master's degree in Museum Studies. Her primary interests are curation and archival and she hopes the Museum Studies program will expand her knowledge of natural history as well as the arts.

Mackenzie graduated from the University of Florida in May 2021 with degrees in History and Women’s Studies. Her research focuses on gender and feminism in American films, particularly popular films from the 1990s, to understand how third-wave feminism is communicated to the public. She first became interested in working in museums after completing an internship at the Matheson History Museum, where she was tasked with the creation of a brand new exhibition for the museum, Trailblazers: 150 Years of Alachua County Women. It was here that she discovered a passion for exhibition research and creation, particularly the creation of exhibits that highlight people and histories that are often ignored. She is also planning on completing a certificate in Historic Preservation during her graduate studies. Her overall goal in completing this program is to learn about how museums have worked in the past and how they can improve in the future, especially as it pertains to how narratives surrounding gender, race, and sexuality have historically been taught in museums.

David earned his bachelor's degree in anthropology (concentration in archaeology) with a minor in classical studies from the University of Florida in Spring 2017 and a master’s degree in art history from the University of Georgia in Spring 2020. At UF, he picked up an interest in collections management while working for various professors in the anthropology department. He also took internships in the Registration department at the Harn Museum of Art, here in Gainesville, the Appleton Museum of Art in Ocala, FL, and the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens. Both of those experiences encouraged him to pursue a graduate degree in museum studies at UF. During his second year, he has completed a summer internship in the Amazonian collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History and he recently returned from a research trip conducted at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His research examines indigenous Amazonian art, aesthetics, and material culture and how they may serve to disrupt traditional binaries of museum classification systems.

Ivy received her undergraduate degree in Asian Studies, but initially started out in Chemistry. She then earned an Artist Diploma in cello performance and started working in the non-profit arts sector. In Gainesville, she worked at the Harn Museum of Art for eight years in various departments, starting in Education as the Bishop Study Center Manager, Adult Programs & Volunteer Coordinator. Ivy then worked as Curatorial Program Manager and most recently created and implemented the Composers-in-Residence program, working with UF Music Composition PhD students who created new music works performed in the galleries inspired by objects in the museum collection. She chose the UF Museum Studies Program because she is inspired by Dr. Porchia Moore and her work in inclusion and engagement.

Evangeline received a BS in multidisciplinary anthropology from Appalachian State University, with minors in biology and religious studies. Her interest in museums is informed by a number of experiences: three summers of ethnographic research on tourism in Ecuador, an internship at the Parthenon Museum in Nashville, TN, and a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA working with a racial equity initiative in Asheville, NC. Her research interests in museum studies focus on decolonization and racial equity work in museums, and the relationship of museums to local communities.

Laura graduated from Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, with a degree in Information Science- Librarianship.​ While in her last undergraduate semester, she was looking for an internship that could professionally challenge her differently than libraries and archives and chose the Museum of Arquitecture Leopoldo Rother at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. While in Colombia, Laura worked at a Museum of Architecture and a Museum of Geology. In the Museum of Architecture, she helped produce a catalog and received compliments from visitors on how. Through the years, visitors complimented their work as the only well-organized and stored architectural drawings. During this experience, she fell in love with collections. Laura chose the UF program because of the curriculum focus on collections management and the Gainesville weather and surrounding nature. She would like to advocate for accessible and active collections to researchers, museum professionals, and people in general. Also, she would like to see greater community engagement, inclusion, and diversity within the collections field. Laura wants to bring a breath of fresh air to collections, and be a game-changer in her field.

Megan attended the University of North Florida and double-majored in History and Anthropology. She has always been fascinated by and a frequent visitor of museums, heritage sites, and parks. While at UNF, she explored her interests further by interning and afterward volunteering at the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville, Florida, as both a collections management and curatorial assistant. She is currently interning with the City of Gainesville's Park, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department to enter their art collection into PastPerfect and create a collections management policy. Megan chose UF's Museum Studies program because it offers a holistic approach to the field, which is needed to be successful in today's museum world. This program also allows her to pursue related interests in digital media and historic preservation, giving Megan the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills of her choosing.

Katharine is a Double Gator. She went to UF for her undergrad degree and majored in history and public relations. She loves history and is interested in the ways we remember it. Often, we see documents as neutral, factual sources. However, these sources can easily be manipulated by the context they are viewed in, and Katharine wants to ensure that these objects are displayed in the most ethical way! Even though she doesn’t have any museum experience, she loves libraries and spent most of her childhood in them. She volunteered at a library in 2016 for a summer reading program for children. Katharine chose the Museum Studies program because she wanted to work with a small cohort and professors who care and nurture her interests.

Brie holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Florida. She is fascinated with the emotions that collections objects on display elicit. Brie’s first collections internship at the South Florida Museum allowed her to identify that her career goals lie in collections management. She is interested in learning how museums can best manage sudden and large collections of objects in a field that is usually better equipped to process slowly growing collections. She most recently interned at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in her hometown of Boca Raton, Florida, developing accession procedures for the center’s natural history collection. Brie looks forward to the curriculum offered by this program providing an academic foundation to her work in collections management.

Chandler graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic University with a degree in history and minor in business administration. She has always had an interest in history and the arts, but it wasn’t until college that she became active in museums through internships. Her experience with the Norton Museum of Art inspired her passion of making museums a place where people feel welcomed. She became a communications intern at the Norton Museum of Art which sparked her interest in the business side of arts organizations. Chandler later volunteered at a gallery that served underprivileged children through the arts and served twice as a development intern at the Harn Museum of Art. Interning at the Harn showed her the positive impact a career in fundraising can have on the community and helped her declare a concentration to focus on for graduate school.

Georgia received her BA in Anthropology at the University of Florida, minoring in Art History and Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She is interested in collections management and exhibit design. She has experience interning at the Harn Museum of Art in the African curatorial department. For the last year she has been volunteering at the Florida Museum of Natural History in the Vertebrate Paleontology Prep Lab. She has a background in archaeology and has been working with UF's Historical Archaeology department both in the lab and the field since high school. She believes that museums should constantly try to adapt and reinvent ways of presenting information through their collections and exhibits. Relating to and reaching a wide audience on both a personal and academic level keeps museums relevant and influential. She is interested in exploring how science and art can be utilized to apply more immersive approaches to exhibits and collections that will positively impact audience engagement. 

Marygrace is a graduate of Boston University, earning degrees in History and International Relations. She has always been interested in how the events of history are perceived and portrayed by different communities. Marygrace has always been drawn to museums. She is continually inspired by the stories, artifacts, and personal narratives not often discussed in classrooms. She believes that museums humanize history, and by doing so they are able to engage the community and inspire people to reach across social, ethnic, and economic boundaries. This is what drove her to pursue a degree in Museum Studies. She most recently interned at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin working in the Archives department. As a native North Easterner, she is excited to live and learn in a part of the country that is so different from what she is familiar with.   

After graduating from the Museum Studies program in 2017, Elizabeth worked as an Exhibits Associate at George A. Smathers Libraries for 3.5 years. Last year, she accepted an opportunity to work remotely in the tech field for a cloud service consulting company. Since the Museum Studies program is interdisciplinary, Elizabeth focused on 3D printing for her research which opened some doors into other technologies. Though she is not currently working in the museum field, she is consulting on more "behind the scenes" aspects of what museums use, such as digital database storage, website and app hosting, etc. Elizabeth is currently a board member for a local 501(c)(3) organization, and hopes to sit on boards of museums in the future, using her ethical and best practice knowledge she gained through the Museum Studies program at UF.

Kat received a degree from Wake Forest University in Anthropology. While there, she fell in love with museums like the Reynolda House Museum of American Art. After graduating, she went on to work for a variety of museums—from paleontology to archaeology to local history. She graduated with her Master’s in Museum Studies in 2016 and transitioned to a position as Special Events and Marketing Coordinator for Manatee Village Historical Park. Two years later, she was promoted to Site Director, which gave her an opportunity to work in all aspects of the museum from grants management to education, exhibits and collections. Kathryn then moved back to Gainesville and worked for two years at the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, before making a major career change. She now works as a Research Coordinator in Biomedical Informatics at the University of Florida. Kat’s degree in Museum Studies gave her the opportunity her to pursue a career that was not only fun and rewarding, but also allowed her to gain skills in project and team management, budgets, grants, and a variety of other areas that can be transferred to almost any field.