Meet SEMC’s New Officers and Council Members

President

Matthew S. Davis

Director of Historic Museums Georgia College Milledgeville, Georgia Matt Davis is a native of Kinston, NC, and received his education at Georgia College & State University. Graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science Degree in History in 2002 and a Master of Arts in History with a concentration in Public History in 2004, he is currently employed as the Director of Historic Museums at Georgia College, which includes Georgia’s Old Governor’s Mansion, Andalusia: The Home of Flannery O’Connor, and The Sallie Ellis Davis House. His duties include service as administrative director and chief curator, oversight of the historic properties, research, educational programming, fundraising, and management of the Watson-Brown Foundation Junior Board of Trustees, Milledgeville Chapter.  Davis is a member of several professional museum groups and boards. He was the founder and first chair of the Milledgeville Museum Association and served as president of the Georgia Association of Museums from 2018-2021. In 2019, he was elected to the governing council of the Southeastern Museums Conference and was elected by the membership as Vice President

in 2020 and will assume the presidency in 2022. He also served as chair of the organization’s program and evaluation committee and was a founding co-chair of the Mid-Career professionals committee. Additionally, he is the immediate past State Awards Chair for the American Association of State and Local History, is a committeeman at large for CurCom, and serves as an accreditation reviewer for the American Alliance of Museums. Davis is a 2016 graduate of the 21st Century Museum Leadership Institute, which was sponsored by the George Washington University and the Smithsonian Institution and a 2022 graduate of the Southeastern Museum Conference Leadership Institute. He is a frequent guest speaker and presenter at museum conferences nationwide. Aside from his duties at the museums, Davis teaches as an adjunct professor at Georgia College in the Museum Studies Program within the Department of Art. He also teaches at Georgia Military College in the History Department as an Adjunct Associate Professor of History. In 2008, Davis was named to Milledgeville Scene Magazine’s inaugural “20 under 40” list. In 2012, Davis was named as the Museum Professional of the Year by the Georgia Association of Museums. Davis has also served in a variety of capacities in various local organizations including current service as chair of the Milledgeville Convention and Visitors Bureau, as an advisor on the advisory board for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Georgia College, and was recently elected for his third term as a member of Georgia College’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. Matt resides in Gray, Georgia with his wife Lisa and his children Addison, Aiden, and Abigail.

Vice President

Dr. Calinda N. Lee

Owner and Principal Sources CRM, LLC Atlanta, Georgia

Educated at Spelman College (BA), New York University (MA) and Emory University (MA and PhD), Calinda N. Lee founded Sources Cultural Resources Management, LLC to provide historically-resonant, inclusive interpretation and organizational development services. Calinda’s historical expertise informs opportunities to connect stories and events from the past with current day circumstances. The value of community engagement in historical interpretation as well as civil and human rights work is of utmost importance to Calinda, and informs programs and initiatives under her leadership. Prior to reestablishing Sources as a fulltime, Lee served as the Head of Interpretation at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. She joined the executive leadership team at The Center to oversee its mission-focused work. In this role, she oversaw Education and Exhibitions teams as well as substantive program work on community partnerships. Calinda previously served as Vice President of Historical Interpretation and Community Engagement for the Atlanta History Center. In this role, she served as chief historian, considering historical interpretation for all aspects of the region’s past to develop the AHC’s primary collections, historic houses, historic gardens, and public programs. Calinda also developed Community Engagements and the AHC’s Neighborhoods Initiative. As a scholar and administrator, Dr. Lee has held teaching and administrative positions at Emory University, Loyola University Chicago and Spelman College. A prolific practitioner, she is an award-winning curator, writer, and educator. In addition to the engagements above, Lee she has worked with institutions including the United States State Department, Albuquerque Museum, the City Museum of Washington, DC, the Maryland Museum for African American Life and History, the Chicago History Museum, and Emory University, among others.

Treasurer

Scott Alvey

Executive Director Kentucky Historical Society Frankfort, Kentucky

Scott Alvey is the Executive Director of the Kentucky Historical Society. He directs the organization’s mission, values and strategic priorities through programming, publications, exhibits and other public resources. Alvey began his career as an education volunteer for the Museum of History and Science in Louisville. As the museum grew into the Louisville Science Center, he led education programs, collections, facilities, and exhibition development. In 2008, he joined the Kentucky Historical Society as design studio director, leading efforts to create promotional and interpretative experiences. He became deputy director in 2012 and was named executive director in July 2018.  “Museums create pivotal experiences,” he said. “At the Kentucky Historical Society, we help people connect to history through ancestry, art, subject matter and many other touchpoints. It’s not about just putting things on display. It’s about giving people experiences that will inspire them and that they’ll remember.”  An Evansville, IN, native, Alvey holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Western Kentucky University and is a 2010 graduate of the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH) Seminar for Historical Administration. He chaired the host committee for the AASLH 2015 Conference in Louisville, KY, was president of the Kentucky Museum and Heritage Alliance and state director for the Southeast Museums Conference. He is in the 2022 class of Leadership Kentucky and serves on a variety of boards and commissions, including the Kentucky Historical Society Foundation, Kentucky Historic Properties Advisory Committee, Kentucky Military Heritage Commission, Kentucky Oral History Commission, and the Kentucky Sestercentennial Commission.

Secretary

Deitrah J. Taylor

Public Historian/Dramaturg/Playwright Perry, Georgia

Deitrah Taylor is an independent curator and historian with 15 years of experience serving active learners of all ages. She previously worked as Cultural Center Coordinator for Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville and has additioanl experience with both the Old Governor’s Mansion and Sallie Ellis Davis House where she established new tours within the space covered by local and regional media. Deitrah Taylor has served on term as SEMC Secretary and two terms as a Council Director. She was also a founding member of the SEMC Equity and Inclusion Action Team.

Past President

Heather Marie Wells

Digital Media Project Manager Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Bentonville, Arkansas

Heather Marie Wells is the digital media project manager at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. Her projects have received numerous awards from museum associations at the state, regional, and national levels. She has presented several times at the Arkansas Museums Association (AMA), SEMC, and AAM. In 2008 she was named the SEMC Emerging Professional of the Year, and the AMA’s Staff of the Year in 2012. She is the AMA President, has served two terms as a Board Director for SEMC, and is a board member of the AAM Media & Technology Professional Network. Heather Marie is a passionate believer in the ability of technology to educate, excite, and engage people by forming personal connections between museums and the public.

NEW COUNCIL MEMBERS

Tafeni English

Director Civil Rights Memorial Center Southern Poverty Law Center Montgomery, Alabama Tafeni L. English is the director of the SPLC’s Civil Rights Memorial Center (CRMC) in Montgomery, Alabama. The CRMC is an interpretive center that provides visitors with a deeper understanding of the civil rights movement. It is committed to honoring and advancing the contributions and cultural heritage of people who have been historically disenfranchised and oppressed. The CRMC includes the Civil Rights Memorial, designed by Maya Lin, which honors 40 men, women and children killed during the movement. In addition to overseeing the CRMC, English regularly travels across the country to speak to community and youth groups about ways to fight systemic racism and usher in social change for justice, equity, accessibility and inclusion for all. English first joined the SPLC in 1997 as a research analyst for its Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups and other far-right extremists. She later served as the first director of the Mix It Up at Lunch Day program. Developed by the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance program, now Learning for Justice, Mix It Up encourages schoolchildren to identify, question and cross social boundaries by sitting with someone new in the school cafeteria. English later worked for another Montgomery-based civil rights organization before returning to the SPLC in 2019. She has a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Troy University, where she also earned a master’s degree in counseling and psychology. Tafeni is a 2020 graduate of the SEMC Leadership Institute.

Michelle Schulte

Senior Curator and Director of Public Programs LSU Museum of Art Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Michelle Schulte began her museum career in 1999 at the Telfair Academy, part of the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, transitioning from a classroom art teacher in the local public school system to the museum’s Curator of Education. She went on to serve as the Curator of Education at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia, where she was integral in cultivating community partnerships, developing programming, curating contemporary art exhibitions, managing departments and budgets, board relations, and authoring interpretation. While in Augusta, she also served as adjunct faculty at the Katherine Reese Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Augusta University, and developed the Art Museum Studies Minor program. Since then, she has held positions as the Gallery Director and Chief Curator at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, and the Anna Lamar Switzer Center for Visual Arts at Pensacola State College in Florida, and continued to teach museum studies and arts management coursework. Schulte currently serves as the Senior Curator and Director of Public Programs at the LSU Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She oversees a robust schedule of exhibitions, designs accompanying interpretation and programming, identifies and coordinates acquisitions, and manages a curatorial team of four full time professional staff, LSU graduate assistants, and work study students. Schulte completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design and the Georgia State Teaching Certification in Art Education from Armstrong Atlantic State University (now part of Georgia Southern University), both in Georgia, and received her Master of Arts degree in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Passionate about continuing education and professional development, Schulte has held leadership positions with numerous museum and art education associations over the last twenty years, with a particular dedication to the Southeastern Museums Conference.

Katie Ericson

Director of Education Michael C. Carlos Museum Atlanta, Georgia

Katie Ericson is the Director of Education at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Prior to this role she was the Senior Manager, School and Volunteer Programs and manages the volunteer docent guild, and designs programs for K-12 students, teachers, and university students, creating interdisciplinary connections between visual art and STEM, language arts, history, and social emotional learning. She co-chairs the Carlos Museum’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, working across the institution and spearheading accessibility initiatives — including making the Carlos the first Art Museum in Georgia to receive

Sensory Inclusion Certification. Katie earned her bachelor’s degree in Art Management from Appalachian State University, and a master’s degree in Art Education from the University of Florida. Prior to the Carlos Museum, she worked as the Education and Outreach Coordinator at the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University, Youth and Family Programs Fellow at North Carolina Museum of Art, and Exhibitions Assistant at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University. In addition to her role at the Carlos, Katie currently serves as the Museum Representative on the Georgia Art Education Association (GAEA) Board and won the GAEA Museum Educator of the Year award in 2021. She is an incoming SEMC Council member as well as the chair of SEMC Educators Committee, former chair for the SEMC Emerging Museum Professionals (2016- 2021), and an active member of the SEMC Program Committee. She also serves as a co-leader of the Atlanta Cultural Educators group, and in 2017 was the founder of the Atlanta Emerging Museum Professionals Network, serving as a co-leader for two years. HELP OTHERS SHARE THEIR BEST STORY WITH THE WORLD

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A star is born! Webb’s new view gives us a rare peek into stars in their earliest, rapid stages of formation. For an individual star, this period only lasts about 50,000 to 100,000 years. A composite image of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, created with the Webb telescope’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments. The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

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