Past Board Members

Deputy Director, National History Day

Kim Fortney is the deputy director of National History Day, Inc. (NHD). She joined NHD in August 2009 after 13 years with the Heritage Center of Lancaster County in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. As vice president of the Heritage Center, Kim directed all aspects of educational programming for teachers, students and adults. In her position, she coordinated a thriving regional competition of National History Day and served on the advisory board for National History Day in Pennsylvania. Kim is deeply committed to history education and informal learning and has made a name for herself in the museum education community. She recently co-edited, with Beverly Sheppard, An Alliance of Spirit: Museum and School Partnerships, published by the American Association of Museums in May 2010. Kim has presented on numerous occasions at professional conferences, including the the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, the American Association of Museums, the American Association for State and Local History, the Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies and the Middle States Council for the Social Studies. Kim received her M.A. in History and Museum Studies from Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, PA), 1995, and her B.A. in History and Secondary Education from Westminster College (New Wilmington, PA), 1988.

Senior Director of Museum Programs, National Law Enforcement Museum

Laurie currently serves as the Senior Director of Museum Programs for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in Washington, DC, where she is the senior museum professional working on the creation of the National Law Enforcement Museum, scheduled to open in 2013. Ms. Baty has an undergraduate degree in History from Gettysburg College (Pennsylvania) and a Masters in American Studies, Smithsonian Program in Material Culture with a concentration in Museum Studies, from The George Washington University (Washington, DC). She has an extensive background in museums and archives, and is a published photographic historian. Ms. Baty has worked for many different cultural institutions including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Archives and Records Administration, Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, Maryland Historical Society, and the International Museum Photography and Film at George Eastman House. She has served as an international instructor for the Society of American Archivists in the Administration of Photographic Collections and for 19 years was the editor of Views, the Newsletter of the Visual Materials Section of the Society of American Archivists. Ms. Baty also represented the Society of American Archivists on the Joint Committee of the American Library Association/Society of American Archivists/American Association of Museums. In 2007 she was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the Society of American Archivists and in 2009 was selected to be a Peer Review for the American Association of Museums.

Director of Education, National Children’s Museum

Professor of Art History & Director of MA Program of Museum Professions, Seton Hall University

A specialist in the history of nineteenth-century European art, Petra Chu has published extensively in this area. She is the author of a widely used college textbook, called Nineteenth-Century European Art, and the founding editor of Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, an electronic journal devoted to nineteenth-century art (19thc-artworldwide.org). As department chair for 21 years, she co-founded with Professor Barbara Cate, the Master of Arts (M.A.) in Museum Professions program, of which she is currently the director. Petra has a Doctoral degree from the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) and a Ph.D., from Columbia University (New York City). She has published six books and is the author/co-author of two exhibition catalogues and some thirty articles and chapters in anthologies. She has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim and fellowships in the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is the founder and managing editor of Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, one of the first electronic journals in art history.

Executive Director at Springfield Museum of Art

Prior to her work at the Springfield Museum of Art, Ann was the Director of Education & Visitor Services at the Heinz History Center, and Assistant Curator of Education at the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum. She is a graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute Museum Leadership Institute and holds an M.S., Museum Education from Bank Street College of Education and a B.A., History from Bates College.

Acting Director, Bureau of Historic Sites, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

Chief, Museum Services Division, Statue of Liberty National Museum, Ellis Island, National Park Service

President, L.C. Wharton, LLC

Carole has over 30 years experience in consulting, administration, planning, and budgeting in colleges and universities, museums, and other non-profits. She is a co-author of a new text on facilities planning for museums and has been a faculty member in various museum and higher education institutes.