NEMA 2020 Excellence Awards
People are what make our museums great, and NEMA’s members are some of the most talented and dedicated people in the field. NEMA is pleased to announce the winners of the seventh annual Excellence Awards competition and proud to honor our colleagues' extraordinary efforts. This year's awardees received recognition at the Annual Meeting at this year's conference. Special thanks to our judges and to all the nominators.
View a video compilation of the NEMA Excellence Award winners online here.
Congratulations to this year's Excellence Award winners!
Julie Arrison-Bishop is the Community Engagement Director for The House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association in Salem, Mass. Since September 2015, she has been responsible for interpretive planning, marketing and public relations, public programming, visitor services, settlement programming, and fundraising to support these endeavors. Arrison-Bishop was previously employed as a site manager for Historic New England and development assistant at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Internship experience included time at the Thornton Burgess Society in Sandwich, Mass. and at Boston National Historic Park as an interpretive park ranger. She has also volunteered or held board positions with the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Friends of Fairsted, the Franklin Park Coalition, Historic Salem, Inc., Destination Salem, and the North of Boston CVB. She currently volunteers for Ayers Ryal Side Elementary School, Historic Beverly, Massachusetts History Day, and Saint Margaret’s Parish. Julie currently lives in Beverly, Mass. with her husband, stepson, and active puppy. She enjoys spending time with friends and family as well as gardening, skiing, yoga, and reading at the beach.
Corinne Flax is the Manager of School and Community Partnerships at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich Connecticut. Museum Education is the career Corinne Flax found, or that perhaps found her, after she finished her undergraduate degree in Art History at Drew University. A lifelong lover of museums, it wasn’t until she began researching teaching programs that she discovered museum education as a career option, she applied to the Museum Education Program at the Bank Street School of Education and never looked back. Her time in the field has helped her refine her vision and focus, leading to her current work, providing greater access to the Bruce Museum and its resources, within the Fairfield/Westchester community. Corinne is proud to be able to work within the community she was raised, especially with those members of the community who do not regularly visit museums. To do this she has partnered with local immigrant community centers, senior centers and assisted living residences, school districts and pre-school centers, finding ways to collaborate to provide meaningful programming and experiences for all.
Chris Kauffman is the Education and Interpretation Manager at Lexington Historical Society and has served in that role since joining the organization in March 2015. Chris is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of Lexington Historical Society’s three historic properties Buckman Tavern, Hancock-Clarke House and Munroe Tavern as well as the guide staff at all three locations. During his tenure at Lexington Historical Society, Chris has implemented a new interpretive strategy at Munroe Tavern as well as expanding school and youth program offerings. During the 2020 season, Chris has been part of the team that has managed Lexington Historical Society’s COVID-19 response and efforts to engage visitors both virtually and in person (safely) during the pandemic. Chris has a BA in History from West Virginia Wesleyan College (2008) and a MA in Public History from Duquesne University (2010). Originally, from Lancaster County, PA, Chris has resided in the North Shore area of Massachusetts for 10 years. His previous work experiences include working as a tour guide at the House of the Seven Gables (Salem, MA) as well as serving as a Museum Educator at the USS Constitution Museum (Charlestown, MA).
Nicole Mello is a National Park Ranger at the Longfellow House—Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site. They began there as an intern, where they started researching Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Harry” Dana, the grandson of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In doing so, they began interpreting queer histories professionally for the first time. Over the last several years of interning, volunteering, and now working at the Longfellow House—Washington’s Headquarters as a National Park Ranger, they have been exploring, interpreting, and normalizing the queer history of the House and beyond. Nicole has created a number of specialty programs on the subject of queer history, including a special tour on the history of Harry Dana’s life, a guided tour on the sexualities of Harry Dana and his aunt Alice Longfellow, and an online program with the History Project about the “queerest house in Cambridge.” Through Nicole Mello’s work at the Longfellow House—Washington’s Headquarters, the site is now freely interpreting queer history, as well as leading other sites in the area to do the same. In addition, Nicole has spent the pandemic creating material online, such as panel lectures, articles, and videos, for the site, to continue interpreting queer history while on lockdown. Because of Nicole’s efforts, the site now openly acknowledges and positively interprets its queer history. For them, it’s all about reminding the public that our global community is not only diverse, but it always has been; there are still many queer histories yet to be told.
Elizabeth Nuckols is the Youth Programs Manager at ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont. In her 13 years at ECHO she has played a key role in the creation and expansion of the museum’s early childhood programs, including the visioning, design and opening of the interactive preschool exhibit, Champ Lane. Elizabeth has also coordinated and supported the growth of ECHO’s K-6 school programs and managed the launch of a statewide STEM outreach program. She has recently served as a leader in the museum's quick pivot to online synchronous and asynchronous educational programs as the museum responds to the needs of families and schools in Vermont and beyond. Elizabeth most enjoys connecting with young children, sparking their interest and enjoying their energy and enthusiasm for STEM learning.
Jeff Rapsis was appointed Executive Director of the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire in September 2018 after a 35-year career in media and publishing. During his tenure, the Museum has embarked on two major education outreach initiatives. In a partnership with the Manchester (N.H.) School of Technology, the museum has launched a program in which high school students are building an airplane aided by a team of experienced museum volunteers. When the Covid-19 pandemic shut down local schools, the museum's traditional in-person outreach program was quickly reconfigured into an online "Around the World Flight Adventure" in which students and teachers could ride along a virtual flight in a vintage DC-3 aircraft around the globe as rendered on the museum's professional flight simulator. The museum's livestream flight over the beaches of Normandy, France on Memorial Day was featured in Newsweek magazine; the "around the world" flight concluded in August 2020 with a real DC-3 aircraft landing in a ceremony at the museum, which is located at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. Additionally, Jeff is an active musician and silent film accompanist, last summer he made his debut as an accompanist at the Boston Symphony's Tanglewood Learning Institute in Lenox, Massachusetts. Jeff received a Bachelor's Degree from Fordham University in 1986, and earned an MBA from the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore School of Business in 2003.
Nancy Rexford began her career at Historic Northampton in 1975 by recognizing that a dress was on a mannequin backwards. The tour guide, impressed by this proof of expertise, invited her to work with the museum’s sizable clothing collection. The aptitude she showed for hauling boxes, cleaning and organizing during this project opened up many new museum opportunities, and she added registrar and then assistant director to her resume. In 1983, the National Endowment for the Humanities generously funded her research on dress. Women’s Shoes in America, 1795-1930 (the “easiest” volume in a planned series) took ten years to write and won the Costume Society of America’s Millia Davenport Publication Award. Fast forward to 2014, Historic Northampton was looking for a treasurer and she knew her accounting experience gave her a great excuse to re-engage. At that point, the institution had been run into the ground. Collections had been sold, it was out of cash, the buildings were in dangerously poor repair and infested with vermin, and the Board was struggling to find a way to save it. That fall, Nancy stepped in as Acting Director. She worked full-time for nearly two years without pay, sleeping on her office floor so that she could work at night and waste less time on the long commute. It was a happy year because of the way everyone pulled together to drag this important institution out of its decline. Nancy hauled around boxes, Stan Sherer produced a flood of inexpensive and very popular programming, Marie Panik kept the office chugging along, donors known and unknown began contributing again, and the Community Preservation Committee granted enough money to keep the back wall from falling off the 1718 Parsons House. Nancy left Historic Northampton in new hands in 2015 and is happy to watch her successors build on her work and find new ways for history to thrive in the Pioneer Valley.
The Abbe Museum Staff Team aspires to its mission of "Inspiring new learning about the Wabanaki Nations with every visit," both educationally and institutionally. In 2020 we made the difficult decision to cancel the Abbe Museum Indian Market as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. To continue supporting the artists, we created a collection of profiles on our website, showcasing their work and connecting them to buyers. To further the profiles' impact, we remodeled AMIM into a digital space, a move that proved successful enough that we did it again for its sister market NAF. Together the Digital Abbe Museum Indian Market and Digital Native American Festival had more than 1,000 attendees and the recordings have gained an additional 6,000 views.
Every member of our team played an integral role in executing these events:
- Chris Newell, Executive Director - Moderator
- Starr Kelly, Curator of Education - Trivia Coordinator, Social Media Engagement, Artist Liaison
- Jill Sawyer, Associate Director of Advancement - Competition Organizer, Graphic Design, Artist Liaison
- Angela Raup, Manager of Education & Outreach - Q&A Coordinator, Social Media Engagement
- Zachary Taibi, Advancement Associate - Webinar Graphics, Attendee Monitor
- Joanna Robinson-Clarke, Operations & Finance Manager - Webinar Host, Logistics
The Abbe Team’s diversity of knowledge, skills, and interests proved indispensable to the process. Chris’ experience as a musician and educator gave him the showmanship needed to engage the audience while still delivering the Abbe’s mission. Starr & Angela engaged with fun sidebars and difficult topics, providing education and dialogue alongside the event. Zach’s variety of experiences filled in gaps and prompted new ideas to create a smooth and professional event. As the core AMIM Team, Jill & Joanna adapted their plans, pivoting in six weeks from an in-person weekend to a digital event accessible worldwide. Jill’s close relationships with artists allowed her to coordinate with more than 60 artists to develop web profiles and to work directly with them during the event to maintain timing and troubleshoot technical issues. Joanna used her event and theater production skills to handle digital logistics, maintaining artist involvement in the event, and overseeing the production schedule.
