Faculty & Speakers
The Missing Stories
NEH K-12 Institute
NEH K-12 Institute
Dr. Amber Abbas
Amber Abbas is an associate professor of history at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, where she teaches courses on world history, South Asia, South Asian America, and oral history methodology. She completed her PhD in South Asian history at the University of Texas at Austin, where she trained in oral history training with Martha Norkunas. Amber’s oral history and archival research focuses on the period of transition associated with the 1947 Independence and Partition of India that ultimately resulted in the creation of three separate states: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. She served as cochair of the Academic Council of South Asian American Digital Archive from 2014 to 2017. She serves on the OHA Education Committee and has published in South Asian History and Culture, The Appendix, and The Oral History Review. She has worked in archives and conducted oral histories in the United States, England, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
Amber Abbas is an associate professor of history at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, where she teaches courses on world history, South Asia, South Asian America, and oral history methodology. She completed her PhD in South Asian history at the University of Texas at Austin, where she trained in oral history training with Martha Norkunas. Amber’s oral history and archival research focuses on the period of transition associated with the 1947 Independence and Partition of India that ultimately resulted in the creation of three separate states: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. She served as cochair of the Academic Council of South Asian American Digital Archive from 2014 to 2017. She serves on the OHA Education Committee and has published in South Asian History and Culture, The Appendix, and The Oral History Review. She has worked in archives and conducted oral histories in the United States, England, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
Dr. Michelle Caswell
Michelle Caswell, PhD (she/her), is a professor in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she codirects the UCLA Community Archives Lab. In 2008, together with Samip Mallick, Caswell cofounded the South Asian American Digital Archive, an online repository that documents and provides access to the stories of South Asian Americans. She is the author of two books: Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work (Routledge, 2021) and Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), as well as more than four dozen peer-reviewed articles.
Michelle Caswell, PhD (she/her), is a professor in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she codirects the UCLA Community Archives Lab. In 2008, together with Samip Mallick, Caswell cofounded the South Asian American Digital Archive, an online repository that documents and provides access to the stories of South Asian Americans. She is the author of two books: Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work (Routledge, 2021) and Archiving the Unspeakable: Silence, Memory, and the Photographic Record in Cambodia (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), as well as more than four dozen peer-reviewed articles.
Dr. Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher
Dr. Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher is a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, where she is also the director of the International Educational Development program. A school psychologist by training, she earned her doctorate in international educational development with a specialization in curriculum and teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research has focused on the socialization, academic engagement, and civic commitments of migrant children and youth. Her practitioner work has been around teacher education, curriculum development, and school climate issues (particularly related to bias-based bullying and Islamophobia) in the United States and abroad through local and international nongovernmental organizations, USAID, and UNESCO. She has served on the board of directors for the Comparative and International Education Society and the Pennsylvania Council for International Education, and was an advisory board member for MTV's “Look Different” campaign. She is also on the editorial board of Contingencies: A Journal of Global Pedagogy. She is the team lead and curriculum director of the Teaching beyond September 11th curriculum project. Prior to moving to the United States in 2000, she lived in Hong Kong, Pakistan, and Germany.
Dr. Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher is a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, where she is also the director of the International Educational Development program. A school psychologist by training, she earned her doctorate in international educational development with a specialization in curriculum and teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research has focused on the socialization, academic engagement, and civic commitments of migrant children and youth. Her practitioner work has been around teacher education, curriculum development, and school climate issues (particularly related to bias-based bullying and Islamophobia) in the United States and abroad through local and international nongovernmental organizations, USAID, and UNESCO. She has served on the board of directors for the Comparative and International Education Society and the Pennsylvania Council for International Education, and was an advisory board member for MTV's “Look Different” campaign. She is also on the editorial board of Contingencies: A Journal of Global Pedagogy. She is the team lead and curriculum director of the Teaching beyond September 11th curriculum project. Prior to moving to the United States in 2000, she lived in Hong Kong, Pakistan, and Germany.
Joan Ilacqua
Joan Ilacqua is a professional lesbian in Boston, Massachusetts. By collecting oral histories, preserving archival records, and sharing personal stories, Joan works to connect our past to the ongoing fight for equality for all. She is the executive director of The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ+ Boston and serves on the Boston 400th Anniversary Commemoration Commission. She earned her master’s degree in public history from UMass Boston and her BA in history and sculpture from the University of Puget Sound. In her spare time, she designs subversive cross-stitch patterns and reads queer romance novels with her wife and cats. You can check out her work at ilacquajoan.com.
Joan Ilacqua is a professional lesbian in Boston, Massachusetts. By collecting oral histories, preserving archival records, and sharing personal stories, Joan works to connect our past to the ongoing fight for equality for all. She is the executive director of The History Project: Documenting LGBTQ+ Boston and serves on the Boston 400th Anniversary Commemoration Commission. She earned her master’s degree in public history from UMass Boston and her BA in history and sculpture from the University of Puget Sound. In her spare time, she designs subversive cross-stitch patterns and reads queer romance novels with her wife and cats. You can check out her work at ilacquajoan.com.
Michelle Angela Ortiz
Michelle Angela Ortiz is an award-winning visual artist, skilled muralist, community arts educator, and filmmaker who uses her art as a vehicle to represent people and communities whose histories are often lost or co-opted. Through community arts practices, painting, documentaries, and public art installations, she creates a safe space for dialogue around some of the most profound issues communities and individuals may face. Her work tells stories using richly crafted and emotive imagery to claim and transform spaces into a visual affirmation that reveals the strength and spirit of the community.
For 25 years, Ortiz has designed and created over 50 large-scale public works nationally and internationally. Since 2008, Ortiz has led art for social change public art projects in Costa Rica & Ecuador and as a Cultural Envoy through the United States Embassy in Fiji, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Venezuela, Honduras, and Cuba. Ortiz has exhibited her works in many galleries and museums that include the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, and the New Yorker.
Ortiz is a Leeway Foundation Media Resident Artist, Art is Essential Grantee, an Art for Justice Fund Grantee, a Pew Fellow, Rauschenberg Foundation Artist as Activist Fellow, and a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist National Fellow. In 2016, she received the Americans for the Arts' Public Art Year in Review Award which honors outstanding public art projects in the nation.
Michelle Angela Ortiz is an award-winning visual artist, skilled muralist, community arts educator, and filmmaker who uses her art as a vehicle to represent people and communities whose histories are often lost or co-opted. Through community arts practices, painting, documentaries, and public art installations, she creates a safe space for dialogue around some of the most profound issues communities and individuals may face. Her work tells stories using richly crafted and emotive imagery to claim and transform spaces into a visual affirmation that reveals the strength and spirit of the community.
For 25 years, Ortiz has designed and created over 50 large-scale public works nationally and internationally. Since 2008, Ortiz has led art for social change public art projects in Costa Rica & Ecuador and as a Cultural Envoy through the United States Embassy in Fiji, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Venezuela, Honduras, and Cuba. Ortiz has exhibited her works in many galleries and museums that include the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, and the New Yorker.
Ortiz is a Leeway Foundation Media Resident Artist, Art is Essential Grantee, an Art for Justice Fund Grantee, a Pew Fellow, Rauschenberg Foundation Artist as Activist Fellow, and a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist National Fellow. In 2016, she received the Americans for the Arts' Public Art Year in Review Award which honors outstanding public art projects in the nation.
Gabriel Solís
Gabriel Solís (he/him) is the Executive Director of the Texas After Violence Project. Prior to returning to Texas After Violence in 2016, where he previously served as project coordinator and associate director, Gabriel worked as a capital post-conviction investigator for the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, criminal justice researcher at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, and helped lead the Guantánamo Bay Oral History Project at the Columbia Center for Oral History Research. Gabriel is the recipient of the 2018 Pushcart Prize for nonfiction.
Gabriel has served as a consultant for the Ford Foundation’s Reclaiming the Border Narrative, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Oral History Project, and the UCLA Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration project. Gabriel is also currently serving on Shift Collective’s Historypin Research Faculty to help explore the viability of decentralized digital storage as a secure and affordable solution for community archives, the advisory board for the Community-Centered Archives Practice: Transforming Education, Archives, and Community History (C-CAP TEACH project, and as a Fellowship Mentor for Fanny Garcia’s Separated, a National Endowment for the Humanities supported project documenting the lived experiences of parents separated from their children at the U.S./Mexico border under the “zero tolerance” policy in 2018. In addition, Gabe was selected as the 2023 University of California Regents Lecturer in Information Studies.
Gabriel Solís (he/him) is the Executive Director of the Texas After Violence Project. Prior to returning to Texas After Violence in 2016, where he previously served as project coordinator and associate director, Gabriel worked as a capital post-conviction investigator for the Office of Capital and Forensic Writs, criminal justice researcher at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, and helped lead the Guantánamo Bay Oral History Project at the Columbia Center for Oral History Research. Gabriel is the recipient of the 2018 Pushcart Prize for nonfiction.
Gabriel has served as a consultant for the Ford Foundation’s Reclaiming the Border Narrative, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Oral History Project, and the UCLA Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration project. Gabriel is also currently serving on Shift Collective’s Historypin Research Faculty to help explore the viability of decentralized digital storage as a secure and affordable solution for community archives, the advisory board for the Community-Centered Archives Practice: Transforming Education, Archives, and Community History (C-CAP TEACH project, and as a Fellowship Mentor for Fanny Garcia’s Separated, a National Endowment for the Humanities supported project documenting the lived experiences of parents separated from their children at the U.S./Mexico border under the “zero tolerance” policy in 2018. In addition, Gabe was selected as the 2023 University of California Regents Lecturer in Information Studies.
Arun Venugopal
Arun Venugopal is a senior reporter in the WNYC Race & Justice Unit who focuses on issues of race and bias in our region. His reporting also tackles the topics of immigration, faith, and inequality.
Arun was the creator and host of Micropolis, a series about race and identity. He is a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered, has appeared on PBS Newshour, On the Media and CBS News, and has been published in the Atlantic, the Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He's also served as a guest host of numerous public radio shows, including NPR's Fresh Air, the Takeaway and the Brian Lehrer show. He and his family are diehard denizens of Jackson Heights, Queens.
Arun Venugopal is a senior reporter in the WNYC Race & Justice Unit who focuses on issues of race and bias in our region. His reporting also tackles the topics of immigration, faith, and inequality.
Arun was the creator and host of Micropolis, a series about race and identity. He is a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered, has appeared on PBS Newshour, On the Media and CBS News, and has been published in the Atlantic, the Guardian, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He's also served as a guest host of numerous public radio shows, including NPR's Fresh Air, the Takeaway and the Brian Lehrer show. He and his family are diehard denizens of Jackson Heights, Queens.
Tailinh Agoyo
Tailinh Agoyo is co-founder and director of We Are the Seeds of CultureTrust, a Philadelphia-based non-profit committed to amplifying Indigenous voices through the arts. We Are the Seeds has produced more than 165 public programs to date, including "From Here With a View: A We Are the Seeds Philadelphia Podcast." Tailinh is also a co-founder of Project Antelope, an online marketplace platform developed by Indigenous business leaders and tailored for Indigenous artists. She has worked in public relations, marketing, and design for more than 25 years. Tailinh served as head of design for a global consulting firm's West Coast offices and as director of public relations, marketing, and programming for SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market. She co-founded Indigenous Fine Art Market in 2014, and in 2016 produced EAST, an Indigenous art show, in partnership with the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Northeast Indigenous Arts Alliance. Through her work, Tailinh has developed an expansive view of how to support and lift Indigenous artists and communities.
Tailinh Agoyo is co-founder and director of We Are the Seeds of CultureTrust, a Philadelphia-based non-profit committed to amplifying Indigenous voices through the arts. We Are the Seeds has produced more than 165 public programs to date, including "From Here With a View: A We Are the Seeds Philadelphia Podcast." Tailinh is also a co-founder of Project Antelope, an online marketplace platform developed by Indigenous business leaders and tailored for Indigenous artists. She has worked in public relations, marketing, and design for more than 25 years. Tailinh served as head of design for a global consulting firm's West Coast offices and as director of public relations, marketing, and programming for SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market. She co-founded Indigenous Fine Art Market in 2014, and in 2016 produced EAST, an Indigenous art show, in partnership with the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Northeast Indigenous Arts Alliance. Through her work, Tailinh has developed an expansive view of how to support and lift Indigenous artists and communities.
Margaret Jerrido
Margaret Jerrido has been the archivist at Mother Bethel AME Church since 2008. Previously she was the Archivist and Director of the Urban Archives, in the Temple University Libraries. Ms. Jerrido has conducted workshops on how to preserve all formats of historical materials, planned workshops and lead discussion groups on forming an archives. She has consulted with various repositories, community groups and church historical ministries throughout Philadelphia on how to establish and maintain an archives.
She is currently working on gathering historical data to assist researchers and genealogists on finding, in particular, birth and death dates about African Americans during the late 19th to the late 20th centuries.
Margaret Jerrido has been the archivist at Mother Bethel AME Church since 2008. Previously she was the Archivist and Director of the Urban Archives, in the Temple University Libraries. Ms. Jerrido has conducted workshops on how to preserve all formats of historical materials, planned workshops and lead discussion groups on forming an archives. She has consulted with various repositories, community groups and church historical ministries throughout Philadelphia on how to establish and maintain an archives.
She is currently working on gathering historical data to assist researchers and genealogists on finding, in particular, birth and death dates about African Americans during the late 19th to the late 20th centuries.
Naomi Ostwald Kawamura
Naomi Ostwald Kawamura serves as the Executive Director of Densho, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization and digital archives focused on documenting, preserving and educating the public on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Prior to Densho, Naomi was the Executive Director of the Nikkei Place Foundation, Director of Education at the San Diego History Center, and Associate Director of the Bay Area Video Coalition. In 2021 & 2022, Naomi served as the President of the Museum Education Roundtable, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit which publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of Museum Education. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Washington, a Master’s degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of British Columbia. Her scholarly research focuses on cultural memory practices in Japanese American and Japanese Canadian communities.
Naomi Ostwald Kawamura serves as the Executive Director of Densho, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization and digital archives focused on documenting, preserving and educating the public on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Prior to Densho, Naomi was the Executive Director of the Nikkei Place Foundation, Director of Education at the San Diego History Center, and Associate Director of the Bay Area Video Coalition. In 2021 & 2022, Naomi served as the President of the Museum Education Roundtable, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit which publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of Museum Education. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Washington, a Master’s degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in Education from the University of British Columbia. Her scholarly research focuses on cultural memory practices in Japanese American and Japanese Canadian communities.