Dr. Richard Benjamin is Visiting Professor of Slavery and Public Engagement in the School of Histories, Languages and Cultures at the University of Liverpool. He is on secondment from his role as Head of the International Slavery Museum at National Museums Liverpool and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of International Slavery. 

Richard gained his first degree in Community and Race Relations at Edge Hill College and completed an MA and Ph.D. in Archaeology at the University of Liverpool. In 2002 he was a Visiting Research Scholar at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute of African and African American Research, Harvard University.      

He is a Trustee of the Anthony Walker Foundation, a member of Everton Football Club External Equality Advisory Group, and a Board member of the European Museum Forum and MONITOR: Global Intelligence on Racism magazine. He is Co-editor of the Routledge Book Series on Restorative Justice in Heritage Studies & Archaeology.

His current research on Black museology focuses on diverse museum practices, Black cultural spaces, and the associated artistic, cultural, and social movements. He hosts the Kinways Black Museology podcast.

Hannibal B. Johnson, a Harvard Law School graduate, is an author, attorney, and consultant specializing in diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, human relations, leadership, and non-profit leadership and management. He has taught at The University of Tulsa College of Law, Oklahoma State University, and The University of Oklahoma. Johnson serves on the federal 400 Years of African-American History Commission. He chaired the Education Committee for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission and served as local curator of its world-class history center, Greenwood Rising. His books, including Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples With Its Historical Racial Trauma, chronicle the African American experience in Oklahoma and its indelible impact on American history. Johnson’s play, Big Mama Speaks—A Tulsa Race Riot Survivor’s Story, was selected for the 2011 National Black Theatre Festival and has been staged in Caux, Switzerland. He has received numerous honors and awards for his work and community service, including a lifetime achievement award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book and induction into the Tulsa Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

Anna Laymon is a nationally recognized leader in cultural institutions known for her dynamic, innovative, and collaborative approach to building organizations, managing teams, and sharing America's stories. Anna is the Executive Director of the Women's Suffrage National Monument Foundation, the organization designated by Congress to build a monument in Washington, D.C. that shares the history of the early movement for women’s equality. Prior to joining the Women’s Suffrage National Monument Foundation, Anna served as Vice President of Programs and Planning for the America250 Foundation, Executive Director of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, and the Director of Partnerships and Public Programs for the National Woman’s Party.

M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska is the author of History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s and is currently working on a new book, tentatively entitled Going to Washington, about four different kinds of “visitors” to Washington, D.C.: appointees, tourists, activists, and militia. M.J.’s public facing work includes serving on the editorial board of Washington History Magazine, as well as advisory boards for the DC History Center, the Humanities Truck, and the Board of Directors of Humanities DC.

Frank Barrows is the SeniorAdvisor for Commemorations and Anniversaries for the National Park Service.

Frank started his career with the NPS after the exploration of his culturalidentity as a Cape Verdean American led to a position at New Bedford WhalingNational Historical Park. His role with the NPS allowed him to deepen hisunderstanding of the role of Cape Verdeans in the whaling industry and the roleof African Americans in the New Bedford community. Sharing those stories withothers, especially youth, sparked his passion for the NPS and the beginning ofhis 22-plus year career with the agency.

 After spending almost 15 yearsin New Bedford as a park ranger and chief of interpretation, Frank served foralmost 5 years as superintendent of Fort Stanwix National Monument in Rome, NewYork and 3 years as the project lead responsible for standing up thenewly-established Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, New York.Frank joined the Interior Region 1 team in Philadelphia as the Program Managerfor Visitor Experience and Community Engagement in 2018, supporting over 100parks and programs from Virginia to Maine. He started in his new role in Julyof 2022.

Kristin Ann Hass is a Professor in the Department of American Culture. She lectures, teaches, and writes about public memory, memorialization, and race.

 Her most recent book --Blunt Instruments: Recognizing Racist Infrastructure in Memorials, Museums and Patriotic Practices -- helps readers to identify, classify and name elements of our everyday landscapes and cultural practices that are designed to seem benign or natural but which, in fact, work to maintain powerful structures of inequity. Her other books also take up our shared commemorative landscapes: Sacrificing Soldiers on the National Mall is a study of militarism, race, and war memorials, and Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorialis an exploration of public memorial practices and the legacies of the Vietnam War. 

James Pepper Henry is the Executive Director and CEO of FirstAmericans Museum (FAM), a new cultural institution located in OklahomaCity.  Its mission is to educate the broader public about the uniquecultures, diversity, history, and contributions of the 39 federally recognizedtribes that were removed to Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. The museum opened to the public in September 2021. Jim is a member of the KawNation and is of Muscogee Creek heritage.  He currently serves asVice-Chairman of the Kaw Nation, one of the thirty-nine federally recognizedNative Nations in Oklahoma.

Izetta Autumn Mobley, Ph.D. is a native Washingtonian and graduate of Brown University. She received her doctorate in American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. As a cultural historian, Dr. Mobley’s research focuses on gender, race, disability, medicine, public history, material and visual culture, and digital humanities. Her research explores how race, slavery, and disability are enmeshed in the Atlantic world.

Dr. Mobley has extensive experience within the cultural sector, having worked with TEDx, Shakespeare Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Institute for Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, Humanities D.C., the Office of Historic Alexandria, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and the DC History Conference – for which she served as co-chair and project manager. 

She has received the Walter B. Hill Fellowship at the Banneker- Douglass Museum, the Woods Research Fellowship at the Historic Medical Library at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and was a 2018 National Museum of African American History and Culture Interpretive Fellow. In 2020, Dr. Mobley was an American Council of Learned Scholars Emerging Voices Fellow at The University of Texas at Austin where she taught courses on visual culture, race, cities, and disability. She previously served as a lecturer for the Brown University Watson Institute and as faculty for the Brown University in Washington program.Mobley is a Certified Interpretive Guide, licensed D.C. tour guide, and founder of Site Unseen, focused on exploring submerged, neglected, or under-examined history and culture. 

As a cultural worker, facilitator, and educator, Izetta has more than 25 years   experience specializing in youth development, community capacity building, and equity education. She has taught classes on race, disability, and American history. She is a member of the Association of State and Local History’s History Relevance Working Group and the Association of African American Museums conference planning committee. 

In addition to her work in the cultural sector, Dr. Mobley founded the Office of Diversity & Inclusion at College Summit (now PeerForward), a national education nonprofit and served as its first Senior Diversity Officer. Dr. Mobley has served on several boards, including the National Network for Youth and the now defunct youth journalism organization, Children’s Express. In 2000, she helped to organize and conceive the first National Youth Summit, co-sponsored by the 

National Youth Leadership Council and Points of Light Foundation. Dr. Mobley has appeared on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Good Morning America. Her writing has appeared in Covey, Off Our Backs. She is the co-author of “Work in the Intersections: A Black Feminist Disability Framework.”  

Dr. Mobley is the Director of Interpretation, Collections, and Education at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.

Sara Cureton joined the staff of the New Jersey Historical Commission (NJHC) in 2004 and now serves as its executive director. She oversees funding programs totaling $5.5 million that support history organizations and activities across New Jersey. The NJHC also offers a variety of programs in New Jersey history, including an annual conference, professional development training, and an online journal, New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Ms. Cureton’s career began with positions at several historic sites in the Garden State, working primarily on interpretation and historic preservation projects. As director of Absecon Lighthouse in Atlantic City she developed interpretive programming and oversaw a $3.4 million restoration of New Jersey’s tallest historic beacon. Active in professional organizations, she has served on the boards of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, the New Jersey Association of Museums, and South Jersey Cultural Alliance. Ms. Cureton earned a B.A. in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard University, and an M.A. in Medieval Studies from the University of York in the U.K. She was recognized by the New Jersey Historical Commission with an Award of Recognition in 2003, received the John Cotton Dana Award for her contributions to New Jersey museums from the New Jersey Association of Museums in 2002, and was honored with the Lillian Levy Standing Ovation Award in 2014 by the South Jersey Cultural Alliance.

Activities surrounding New Jersey’s 350^th anniversary in 2014 provided Ms. Cureton with ample opportunity to launch new programming initiatives at the Commission, including an updated series of teaching resources in New Jersey history and a video series titled It Happened Here: New Jersey, for which she serves as an executive producer. The series was recognized with Emmy® nominations in both the New York and Mid-Atlantic regions. Ms. Cureton also served as executive producer for the Emmy®-award winning series NJ Women Vote in 2020.

Ms. Cureton is actively engaged in preparations for the Semiquincentennial in 2026, both as executive director of the New Jersey Historical Commission, and as chair of the Semiquincentennial Coordinating Committee of the American Association for State and Local History. A native of Seattle, Washington, she is now an enthusiastic resident of South Jersey. 

Laura Huerta Migus was appointed Deputy Director, Office of Museum Services, in July 2021. She comes to IMLS following her tenure as Executive Director of the Association of Children's Museums (ACM) in Arlington, Virginia, the world's largest professional society promoting and advocating on behalf of children's museums and children’s museum professionals. In 2018, Laura was named as an Ascend Fellow of the Aspen Institute, and in 2016, she was recognized as a Champion of Change for Summer Opportunity by the White House. She is a noted speaker and author on topics of equity and audience-focused museum practice for institutions including the Board of Science Education of the National Academies of Sciences, the U.S. Play Coalition, and various university texts.

Jennifer is director of the Utah Division of State History, Utah's public history organization which oversees the state's historic collections, public history programming, and the Museum of Utah, the state's first state history museum to be opened in 2026. The Peoples of Utah Revisited is the agency's Utah250 and America250 effort to widen the lens of Utah's history and help amplify the undertold history of the last fifty years of the state.

A rare combination of historian and business leader, Brian W. Martin provides a range of historical, planning, and project management consulting services to stewards of history across economic sectors.

From 2018-2021, he served the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission and its non-profit partners providing contextual understanding of federal Bicentennial planning, serving at the principal author of the Commission's initial plan Inspiring the American Spirit, and leading early engagement with national program partners and facilitating program recognition nationwide.  For 34 years, Brian rose through the ranks of History Associates Incorporated, serving as president when the firm grew to nearly 80 employees, expanded into new markets, and attained record results.  He received his Ph.D. in History and Policy and Master of Science in Applied History and Social Science from Carnegie Mellon University and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Gettysburg College.