Maren Orchard is the Senior Manager of Programs at the DC History Center where she is responsible for producing a slate of relevant, history-based public programs for public audiences. In her role at the DC History Center, she serves as the project manager for the DC History Conference working with the braintrust and committee to make this annual tradition possible. She holds an MA in Public History from American University and a BA in History and Women and Gender Studies from Ball State University.

Bi’Anncha Andrews is the program coordinator and 2024-2025 Researching Black Washington Totman Fellow at the DC History Center. She worked as a researcher for the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network (SBAN) in the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland, College Park where is pursuing her PhD in the Urban and Regional Planning and Design program. She hold an MA in social work (The Catholic University of America) and a BA in criminal justice and psychology (Trinity Washington University).

Natalie Campbell is a curator, exhibit developer, and part of the DC Public Library Exhibits team. She has consulted on art and exhibits at the DC Public Library since 2016, including the MLK Library’s permanent exhibit Up From the People. She has organized exhibitions at venues including the American University Museum (DC), the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design (Asheville, NC), School 33 Art Center (Baltimore, MD), among others. She studied Art History at Hunter College CUNY and has taught at the Corcoran School of Arts + Design at George Washington University and the Maryland Institute College of Art. 

Anne Dobberteen is a Ph.D. candidate in history at George Mason University, and a former Guggenheim Predoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Her dissertation explores the visual culture of air defense in Washington, DC, and the surrounding region during World War II. Dobberteen has also worked as a public historian and museum professional in Washington, most recently at the Heurich House Museum and the Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection at The George Washington University Museum.

Dominique Hazzard is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at Johns Hopkins University. They are a scholar of 20th century urban history, Black ecologies, and African American social movements. They are currently completing their dissertation “Sustaining a Black City: Food Politics in Washington, D.C. after the Civil Rights Movement,” which examines Black visions for the District of Columbia’s food system in the 1960s and 70s. Dominique is also an oral historian, an award-winning curator, and a veteran community organizer in the District. Dominique's current public work interrogates the plantation pasts and futures of urban agriculture sites in the District.

Maria Ibañez is a communications and marketing professional with a 20-year career in the public, private and nonprofit sector. She is a native Washingtonian of Afro-Cuban descent and has shared her family story often including at the 45th Annual DC History Conference. Maria holds an MA in Public Communications from American University, BA from the University of the District of Columbia, and serves on the boards of various nonprofit organizations.

Julianna Jackson brings a decade of experience as a preservation professional to the DC History Conference. She holds an MA in Anthropology from the College of William and Mary, where her graduate research explored the role of architecture in landscapes of slavery in the Washington region. Originally from Baltimore, Julianna is now a proud DC resident with a love for history and the built environment. She has had the privilege of being on the conference planning committee for the past four years.

Tim Kumfer is the Henry A. Wallace Fellowship Program Director at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he supports activists in building skills for public scholarship. A 2023-2024 Mellon Sawyer Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgetown University affiliated with the "Creative Placemaking, Black Restorative Ecologies, and Black Spatial Futures” Seminar, he received his PhD in American Studies from The University of Maryland in 2023. He was a 2022-2023 Totman Fellow at the DC History Center.

Lina Mann first joined the White House Historical Association in 2017 as American University’s Public History Fellow and came onboard as a historian in March 2020. She is interested in many aspects of White House history, including her latest research on the enslaved individuals that built, lived, and worked in the White House. As a lifelong Marylander, she also researches local and regional history. Previously, she has worked with the National Park Service and the Maryland Historical Society. Lina received her BA in History with minors in Anthropology, Environmental Studies, and Museum Studies from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 2016 and earned her MA in Public History from American University in 2019.

Lana Mason is an archivist at the District of Columbia Office of Public Records and Archives. She began her archives career in 2018, and has experience with government, academic, and non-profit archives. She holds an MS in Library and Information Science from Simmons University, where she specialized in archives management, and a BA in Art History from George Mason University. 

Kasey Sease, PhD, is Curator of the Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection at The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum. Beyond developing exhibitions and activating the collection, she programs the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies. A former Managing Editor of Washington History, Kasey holds degrees from the College of William and Mary (PhD, MA, history) and the University of Virginia (BA, history and government). 

Vanessa Williams is a student and practitioner of all things critical pedagogy, with a special appreciation for social studies. She is the education manager at the DC History Center. Williams holds a BA in Anthropology with a minor in Education from Davidson College, as well as her MS Ed in Education, Culture, and Society from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Williams taught secondary ELA and social studies for six years before moving to DC and joining the Teaching for Change team.