Teachers' Lounge

Join RISD Museum and
Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology staff to engage with best practices for
teaching and learning about Native culture, history, and art. This program will
focus on Native art, objects, and cultural belongings in museum collections from
the RISD Museum and the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

Sháńdíín Brown is a Native American Art
professional, jeweler, and citizen of the Navajo Nation. She currently works
full-time as the Henry Luce Curatorial Fellow for Native American Art at the
Rhode Island School of Design Museum and part-time as an art consultant for the
Barnes Foundation as well as teacher's assistant (TA) for the Penn Museum. She
is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts
majoring in Anthropology as well as Native American Studies and minoring in
Environmental Studies. Previously she has held positions at the Heard Museum,
Hood Museum of Art, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, and School for
Advanced Research Indian Arts Research Center.

Leah Hopkins is a citizen of the
Narragansett Indian Tribe and is the new Community Engagement Specialist at the
Museum. She is responsible for working collaboratively with Indigenous and
Tribal communities, museums, and other institutions and Brown students and
faculty to develop, implement and evaluate programming and education
initiatives that best improve the visibility and promote the perspectives of
Indigenous populations in New England. Leah holds a BA in Anthropology from the
University of Rhode Island, and has a background in museum and tribal education
that spans over 10 years, working at both the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and
Research Center, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), and with other
regional institutions, organizations and tribal communities. Leah has done and
continues to do extensive work within the New England region to promote the
visibility, histories, cultural complexities, and cultural continuity of the
area’s Indigenous peoples.

Leah Burgin has worked at the
Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology as the Manager of Museum Education and
Programs since 2017. Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, Leah's career has taken her
to Michigan, Vermont, and Washington, DC., developing and implementing public
interpretation and informal education programs for the National Park Service,
the Smithsonian Institution, and the US Capitol Visitor Center, among other
organizations. Working at the intersections of anthropological archaeology,
museum studies, and Native American studies (BA, University of Michigan), as
well as public humanities (MA, Brown University), she's committed to the
collaborative work of decolonizing museums and passionate about the social
justice potential of heritage education. 

Join fellow teachers of all
subjects. Professional development certificate available. Held in-person at the
RISD Museum.

Questions? Please contact
mlefast@risd.edu.