George Washington and the West (St. Louis, Missouri)

Dr. Lorri Glover

Dr. Lorri Glover is the John Francis Bannon Endowed Chair in the History Department at Saint Louis University. Her books include Founders as Fathers: The Private Lives and Politics of the American Revolutionaries (Yale University Press, 2014); The Fate of the Revolution: Virginians Debate the Constitution (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016); and Eliza Lucas Pinckney: An Independent Woman in the Age of Revolution (Yale University Press, 2020). 

Glover has served as president of the Southern Association for Women Historians and on the Executive Council of the Southern Historical Association, and in 2020, she joined the author team for McGraw-Hill’s high school and middle school U.S. history textbooks. 

David Silverman

David J. Silverman is Professor of History at George Washington University. He is the author of several books on Native American, colonial American, and American racial history, including This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and Troubled History of Thanksgiving (Bloomsbury, 2019) and Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019). 

He is the recent recipient of the William Hickling Prescott Award for Excellence in Historical Writing, given by the Massachusetts branch of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America. His essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and the Daily Beast. 

Alissa Oginsky

Alissa Oginsky is the Director of K-12 Education at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. She is responsible for managing a team of amazing museum educators in supporting teachers and students nationwide. This important work is achieved through facilitating professional development programs for teachers, implementing signature student programs, and developing K-12 classroom resources. 

Prior to joining Mount Vernon in 2018, Alissa spent over a decade in various museum education roles, serving as an elementary and middle school teacher and as an educational leader in Social Studies curriculum across her district. 

She holds an M.A. in Art Museum and Gallery Education from Newcastle University and a B.S. in Elementary Education from York College of Pennsylvania.

Maria Russell

Maria Russell is the K-12 Education Programs Manager at the Missouri Historical Society, where she leads a team of educators to engage students, teachers, and chaperones in building connections between the stories of St. Louis’s past and the lived experiences of community members and visitors. Maria holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology and an MA in Education from the University of New Mexico. 

After several years as an elementary school teacher, Maria earned a second MA in Learning and Visitor Studies in Museums from the University of Leicester in the UK. She has developed educational programming for museums and other informal learning institutions in New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and Missouri. 

Jason D. Stratman

Jason was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, but moved to Vienna, Missouri, at age three when his parents bought their family farm. He graduated from Vienna High School and Northeast Missouri State University with a degree in communication. He then began a 30-year career at the Missouri Historical Society Library. 

As the Library Outreach Manager, he oversees remote research services, school and adult programs, the Saturday Speaker Series, and the Pop-Up Displays. Jason has been married to Tamaki for 27 years. They enjoy volunteering at their church, traveling, hiking, and life with their dogs, Seppe and Lucca.