People

Dr. Phil Carr, thanks to a grandfather who was very friendly with various museum guards around Louisville, Kentucky, grew up in museums. Museums were one impetus to become an archaeologist, though as a child who would spend long amounts of time studying the insect exhibits, especially moths and beetles, biology was a second calling. His first chance to "work" in a museum came in graduate school at the McClung Museum, where he gathered his dissertation data and served as a tour guide to school groups. His specialty became the early human exhibit because other guides were reluctant to tackle the topic of evolution. Receiving wonderful mentoring from the museum staff, his understanding and appreciation for museums grew.

In 2013, Dr. Carr was made Director of the USA Archaeology Museum and in 2014 he taught MUM 201: Introduction to Museum Studies. The integration of the USA Archaeology Museum and Museum Studies Program makes for a unique experience for students minoring in Museum Studies. Come by to share your passion about museums or make an appointment to see me in the office to discuss an interest in Museum Studies.

Dr. Marsha Hamilton received her M.A. in History with a concentration in Historic Resources Management from the University of California, Riverside. She then worked full-time as a curator in history museums in California, New York, and Michigan. She continued to work part-time in museums as she completed her Ph.D. Since coming to the University of South Alabama, she has been responsible for the Public History track in the History Department's M.A. program and has regularly taught the Introduction to Public History class for undergraduate and graduate students.

Dr. Erin Nelson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Social Work at the University of South Alabama. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she worked with the Research Laboratories of Archaeology on several projects related to the physical and digital curation of archaeological materials. Dr. Nelson specializes in the archaeology of the southeastern United States and is interested in the way past people understood and modified the landscapes they lived in by constructing monumental architecture, including earthen mounds and plazas. She is also interested in the material culture of foodways and is developing a lab here at South where she will work with students to analyze ceramic vessels and archaeobotanical remains.

Dr. Nelson has long been interested in bringing archaeology to a public audience both in and out of museums, beginning with a work-study job as a tour guide and curation assistant at the University of Missouri’s Museum of Anthropology. More recently, she has been involved in the Mississippi Mound Trail Project, a collaborative effort between archaeologists, state officials, and Native American nations to develop a driving trail highlighting the monumental Native American earthworks that dot our modern landscape. She looks forward to developing an archaeological field school here in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and to teaching Laboratory Methods in Archaeology.

Elizabeth Richards-Rivenbark is an Associate Professor of Art History and teaches the second half of the Survey to Art History,  Early Modern Art, American Art, Contemporary Art, Women in Art, and Methodologies of Art History. She has published essays on American art in the nineteenth through twenty-first century with special interests in the areas of gender studies, war imagery, and the body in contemporary art. She earned her BA from Colby College and her MA and PhD from Cornell University. Dr. Rivenbark is also a member of the Gender Studies Committee and the Center for the study of War and Memory. Her recent publications include:

"The End of Innocence: The Effects of the Civil War on Children in the Painting of Eastman Johnson," War, Literature, and the Arts, Vol. 26, (2014) n.p.

"Corporeal Furnishings in the Sixties: Furniture as Art and Its Intimacy with the Body," Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 69, (2014), 275-288

"Martha Rosler and Mary Kelly: Materializing Blame," Women's Art Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2012), 3-10

"Rauschenberg's Religion: Between Art and Life," SECAC Review, Vol. XVI, No. 1, (2012), 39-48

Dr. Christina K. Lindeman is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of South Alabama.  She specializes in the art of the long 18th Century, but also teaches classes on Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Art as well as the Introduction to Museum Studies. Dr. Lindeman has conducted research in Italy, Germany, England and Scotland and has recently presented her research at an international conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Her forthcoming book to be published with Francis & Taylor/ Routledge Publishing, Representing Duchess Anna Amalia’s Bildung: A Visual Metamorphosis from Political to Personal in Eighteenth-Century Germany addresses the intersections of art, science, and gender in eighteenth-century German speaking Europe. She also has essays in edited volumes published by Cambridge Scholars Press and Ashgate Publishing.

Her future research project is examining the lives of female court painters in eighteenth-century Berlin and Braunschweig. While working on her Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Art from the University of Arizona she received an Endowed Museum Internship working as a Curatorial Assistant at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. She also worked as a research assistant for the exhibition “John Gutmann, The Photographer at Work,” (2009) at the Center For Creative Photography. From 2007-2008 she received the Samuel H. Kress Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellowship working on the print collection at the University of Arizona.

Her love of art and material culture was ingrained at the early age of 11 when her mother took her to her first German Expressionist exhibition "Kandinsky in Munich 1896-1914" at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC.

Dr. Kara K. Burns specializes in Classical Art and Archaeology. She received her M.A. in Art History from the University of Oregon and her B.A. in History from the University of Arizona. She came to the University of South Alabama in 2007 while still completing her Ph.D. in History and Theory of Art with emphasis in Classical art and archaeology at the University of Arizona. Since completing her Ph.D. in 2012, she has continued to teach as an Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Visual Arts. Dr. Burns specializes in Roman Villas and the ancient beliefs in the afterlife of Greece, Etruria, and Rome. She is in the process of completing her book titled The Iconography of Mystery: The Relationship between Orpheus and Bacchus on Romano-British Mosaics that explores the depiction of Orpheus on Roman Mosaics in late Roman Britain, and their association with Roman Mystery Cult of Bacchus.

Candice Cravins is the Education Curator for the Archaeology Museum and specializes in public archaeology and museum education. She received her M.S. degree in Archaeology and Cultural Resource Management from Utah State University in 2014 and her B.A. degree in Anthropology from California State University, Bakersfield in 2009. Her M.S. thesis work explored effective strategies for teaching archaeology to children in museum settings. Candice has been working in archaeology, K-12 and postsecondary education, and museums since 2007.

Prior to her arrival at the University of South Alabama in 2016, Candice worked as an Educational Specialist for the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Institute of Texan Cultures museum and served as the Educational Programs Manager for the Utah State University Museum of Anthropology. She also has experience working as a state of California-credentialed substitute teacher in K-8 classrooms and as an adjunct anthropology instructor for undergraduate-level courses at San Antonio College. She enjoys creating interactive, inquiry-based learning experiences for students and museum visitors and loves experimenting with new educational technologies.