Interpreting Historic House Museums Today - AASLH's 2025 Historic House Museum In-Person Summit

Michelle Moon is a leader in museum education and an independent consultant recognized for her work on programming, audience engagement, and the intersection of museums and civic issues. She has led education teams at historic sites and interdisciplinary museums including the Tenement Museum (NYC), where she served as Chief Program Officer; the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA), Strawbery Banke, (Portsmouth, NH) and Mystic Seaport (Mystic, CT), and developed interpretation for more than 20 major exhibitions on art, culture, and history. In 2016, Moon completed a Master's degree with honors in Museum Studies at the Harvard Extension School, focusing on interpretive communication and the civic role of museums; she also holds a bachelor’s degree in Education and American Studies from Connecticut College and was selected by Mellon as an Animating Museums Fellow, 2016-19. She is the author of Interpreting Food at Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) and (with Cathy Stanton) Public History and the Food Movement: Adding the Missing Ingredient (Routledge, 2017).

Andrea Jones is an independent consultant and master educator with 20 years experience as a change agent and education strategist. She is a cheerleader for immersive experiences, messy history, and big questions over trivial facts. She works with museums across the country to reinvent storytelling and interpretive methods. In 2016, her team won the award for “Innovation in Museum Education” from the American Alliance of Museums.  In 2018, she was part of a cohort of museum professionals who traveled to India to meet the Dalai Lama and discuss the growing importance of fostering empathy through museums. Operating under the name Peak Experience Lab, her clients include the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, National Museum of Natural History, Huntington Library and Gardens, and Eastern State Penitentiary, among others. She holds a BA in Communications from Purdue University and an M.Ed from Georgia State University.

Debra Reid is curator of agriculture and the environment at The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan, and a member of the Climate & Sustainability Affinity Group of AASLH. She is also professor emerita at Eastern Illinois University. She is author of numerous articles and books focused on agricultural history and African American history and has written or edited three books in the AASLH Interpreting History series: Reid, Interpreting Agriculture at Museums and Historic Sites (2017); Reid and Vail, Interpreting the Environment at Museums and Historic Sites (2019); and Reid co-edited with Scholthof and Vail, Interpreting Science at Museums and Historic Sites (forthcoming 2023).

Kimberly Robinson works at the Harpers Ferry Center for Interpretive Media as a Staff Curator and Planner. She prior to joining HFC she served as a Museum Curator at the George Washington Memorial Parkway (GWMP), a National Park Service (NPS) unit in the Washington Metropolitan Area that includes Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial and Clara Barton National Historic Site. She graduated from the George Washington University’s Museum Studies Graduate Program with a Master of Arts degree with a concentration in Collections Management in 2006. She currently serves as a co-chair of the American Association of State and Local History’s Women’s History Affinity Community and as a member of their Climate and Sustainability Affinity Community. Her research interests are focused on 19th Century Fine and Decorative Arts as well as architecture, in particular the art, architecture and design of the Victorian Era. Ms. Robinson has given numerous talks on historic homes and museum collections management and recently taught collections management at the George Washington University.  

Tonya Staggs is the executive director of Historic Castalian Springs, a new organization in a rural outside of Nashville. Historic Castalian Springs includes three Tennessee state historic sites and historic homes. Prior to becoming director of HCS, Tonya spent nearly 18 years at Historic Travellers Rest, an eighteenth-century home in Nashville.