Guest Bloggers

Guest Bloggers:

Matt Dozier, President and CEO of the EAST Initiative, an educational nonprofit. He is also a member of the Arkansas Discovery Network’s Advisory Council and a huge fan of museums in general.For over fifteen years, the EAST Initiative has been helping schools, teacher-facilitators, and students better engage in technology education, service learning, and individualized educational goals in a program that has been named a model by the Department of Education and the Department of Labor. For more information about EAST and to learn more about the projects students are working on, please visit www.eastproject.org. View his blog entry.

Leslie Kittelsen is a technical writer and has been at Sonnet Software, Inc., which makes High Frequency Electromagnetic Simulation Software in Liverpool, NY www.sonnetsoftware.com), for 15 years. Leslie has a lifelong love of learning fostered by early and frequent visits to museums. She enjoys being a technical writer so that she can help other people to learn. View her blog entry.

Sherry Marshall is Director of the Oklahoma Museum Network, a network very similar to the Arkansas Discovery Network, both funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The Oklahoma Museum Network is a partnership of five museums dedicated to bringing relevant discovery experiences throughout the state of Oklahoma. For more information, please visit www.sciencemuseumok.org/omn/. View her blog entry.

Corey Smith has been working at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum of the Seminole Tribe of Florida (ahtahthiki.com) for 3 1/2 years.  The museum is located on the Big Cypress Reservation in the Florida Everglades.  Corey is an objects and textiles conservator who focuses on ethnographic conservation.  If you have any questions, Corey can be reached at coreysmith@semtribe.com. View her blog entry.

Whether you are a parent, museum employee, teacher, or involved in the education of our children or adults, we’d be interested in talking to you about being a guest blogger. Contact Linda Meyers or let us know in a comment and we’ll send you details!

Network Bloggers:

Nichole Ashley is an Animal Care Technician at the Museum of Discovery.  This basically means that I she is paid to play with animals (ha ha!), as well as take care of all of their daily needs such as cleaning, feeding, watering, chauffeuring, administering daily backrubs to, and cooing over all of the nearly 120 members of our in-house animal community. View her blog entry!

Stephen Ast is the Traveling Exhibits Manager for the Arkansas Discovery Network and the Museum of Discovery. View his blog entries.

Susan Bennett is an Educator/Animal Tech  at the Museum of Discovery, where she has worked for almost 20 Years. According to Susan, this is one of the most fun jobs she has ever had. View her blog entry.

Melanie Dowd is the Executive Director of the Texarkana Museums System, which consists of Discovery Place Children’s Museum, The Ace of Clubs House, and Museum of Regional History. Prior to joining the staff in Texarkana, Melanie served on the Advisory Board of the Arkansas Discovery Network. View her blog entry!

Niles Ellis is Director of Design at the Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs. View his blog entries.

Beth Ann Felton works part time as an Educator/Floor Manager for the Museum of Discovery. View her blog entries.

Lynne Hehr is the Director of the STEM Center for Science & Math Education and Discovery Zone in Fayetteville. View her blog entry.

Brenda Hengel is Director Programming and Communication at the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff. View her blog entry.

Diane LaFollette is the Director of the Arkansas Discovery Network. View her blog entry.

Thomas Lipham is Outreach Educator on the Race for Planet X mobile museum. View his blog entries.

Katie McManners is the Director of Marketing for the Museum of Discovery. View her blog entries.

Andy Marquart has been the Executive Director of Mid-America Science Museum since January of 2008.  Before joining MASM, Andy worked at the Discovery Center in Springfield Missouri. View his blog entry.

Linda Meyers, Assistant Director for the Arkansas Discovery Network and administrator of this blog, has been with the Network for 4 1/2 years. View her blog entries.

Pillager of the Universe, Dr. NoGood makes hair gel in his spare time for fun and profit. He is currently in a Race for Planet X, trying to beat their spaceship to Planet X to pillage its supply of Nostradimium to use in his Dr. NoGood’s Far Out Follicle Treatment for Cosmically Cranky Hair. The spaceship he’s racing was created by the Arkansas Discovery Network (funded by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation) and is a mobile museum that engages Arkansas’ sixth graders in hands-on science experiments in a fun and interactive environment. But as Dr. NoGood sees it, the real truth is that the network is trying to block him at every curve on his quest to pillage the universe! View his blog entries.

Meredith Poland is Director of Development at Museum of Discovery in Little Rock. View her blog entry.

Mindy Porter is Director of Informal Learning at the Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs. View her blog entry.

Marci Bynum Robertson, has been at the Museum of Discovery since November 1995 as a contract employee, moving to a fulltime staff member in 1996. She is the Director of Collections and Research/Grantwriter, taking care of the Museum’s artifacts, research and create exhibits, and write grants. View her blog entry.

Nan was raised in Little Rock and graduated from Central High School.  She received a B.A. from Vassar College and M.A. from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She has held administrative positions with a number of local nonprofits, including the Pulaski County Council on Aging, the Arkansas Sesquicentennial Commission, the Arkansas Easter Seal Society, the Arthritis Foundation and St. Vincent Health System. Nan is currently the Executive Director of the Museum of Discovery.  She is married to Chris Barrier and has two sons, Micah and Jacob Brown, and two grandsons, Joshua and Elijah Brown. View her blog entry.

Derrick Warren is Outreach Educator for the Race for Planet X. View his blog entry.

Casey Wylie is Volunteer Coordinator at the Mid-America Science Museum in Hot Springs. View her blog entry.