Project Team
Directors
Angela M. Labrador, Ph.D.
An anthropologist and educator with a background in archaeology and IT, Angela has applied ethnographic methods to the assessment of community heritage values and the development of digital information systems within the cultural sector. She is a certified Project Archaeology Master Teacher, and the lead content developer for UNESCO’s forthcoming digital “Clearinghouse on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in Formal and Non-Formal Education.” She is President of the Vermont Archaeological Society, website administrator for the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage, and Reviews editor for the journal Heritage & Society. She is a managing partner in the cultural heritage consulting firm, Coherit Associates LLC where she is a lead technical consultant on an OAS $3+ million project, “Expanding the Socio-Economic Potential of Heritage in the Caribbean” funded by the Permanent Mission of the United States to the OAS.
Jason Barney
Jason teaches at Missisquoi Valley Union High School in Northwest Vermont. He attended the College of Saint Joseph in Rutland, Vermont, and graduated with a History Degree while completing the requirements to be a licensed teacher in Vermont. In 1996 he was elected to the Vermont Legislature and served three terms in the Vermont House of Representatives. In his final term he was part of the leadership team, serving as Vice Chair of the House Education Committee. In the Fall of 2002 Jason started his formal teaching career when he was hired as a Social Studies teacher at his former high school. Jason earned his MA in Curriculum Development ten years into his teaching career. In 2012 he furthered his education when he participated in a Teaching In American History grant, which profoundly affected his teaching and led to him suggesting changes to his school’s course. Over the next few semesters Jason developed the curriculum for a new Abenaki and Local History class, which focuses extensively on the history of northwest Vermont with detailed units on the Revolutionary War.
Faculty
Elsa Gilbertson
Elsa Gilbertson has worked for the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation (VDHP) since 1984. Since 2001 she has been a Regional Historic Site Administrator, managing the Chimney Point, Mount Independence, and Hubbardton Battlefield State Historic Sites. She was assistant editor of The Historic Architecture of Rutland County (1988) and The Historic Architecture of Addison County (1992) and the National Register Specialist for many years. Gilbertson has a B.A. from Wellesley College and M.S. in Historic Preservation from Columbia University. She is board of trustees chair for the Starksboro Village Meeting House Society. She was director of the project, “Lake Champlain Voyages of Discovery: Bringing History Home,” a joint effort of Chimney Point, the VDHP, Vermont Public Television, and the Bixby Library for the Samuel de Champlain Quadricentennial commemoration.
Elizabeth Lee
Elizabeth joined LCMM in 2015 as the Ecology Programs Director. In 2017 she began serving as the Education Director, initiating LCMM’s Learning from the Lake focus to unify ecology, history and archaeology programming for schools, professional development courses and school partnerships. Elizabeth holds an undergraduate degree in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University and an MS in Environmental Science from SUNY Plattsburgh, with a specialization in teaching science outdoors. In addition, Elizabeth is a licensed New York State Outdoor Guide and has served as adjunct faculty at SUNY Plattsburgh’s Center for Earth and Environmental Science.
Tracy Martin
Born and raised in New York City, Tracy Martin holds a BA in Art History and Chemistry from Marlboro College, an MA in Archaeological Studies from Yale University and an MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Vermont. Tracy had worked as a museum professional for seventeen years at institutions in Connecticut, Tennessee, Texas and the Green Mountain State before becoming Assistant State Curator at the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services in 2005. Tracy joined the Division for Historic Preservation as Historic Sites Section Chief in 2015.
Daniel O’Neil
Daniel O’Neil, originally from New Hampshire, holds a Bachelors in History from Plymouth State University and a Masters in History from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He served seven years in the United State Marine Corps, deployed with his unit to Iraq in 2004-5, and was honorably discharged as a Sergeant. He is currently a doctoral student at the University of Vermont, where he is enrolled in the Policy and Leadership Studies program. He has been the Executive Director of the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum for eight years, and is a former adjunct professor at St. Michael’s College and The Community College of Vermont. His research involves understanding the place museums and historical societies play in their communities, especially concerning issues of access, equity, and inclusion.
Christopher R. Sabick
Chris Sabick joined the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in 1998, and has acted as the Director of Conservation since 2000. In 2013 he took the reins of the Maritime Research Institute, the museum’s archaeological research wing, as Archaeological Director. Chris earned a B.A. in history and anthropology from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and a M.A. in anthropology from the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University. His Masters Thesis work focused on the history and construction of the War of 1812 Great Lakes Schooner Nancy (1789-1814). Chris currently lives in Vergennes Vermont with his wife of 10 years and two children.
Ennis Duling
Ennis Duling lives in East Poultney, Vermont, on land settled by a Revolutionary War veteran. Now retired, he was the communications director at Castleton State College (Castleton University). Early in his career, he taught public school for a decade and worked as a writer and editor at Ski Racing magazine. In addition to the American Revolution, his interests include local and Vermont history, the history of education, and the social ferment of the early nineteenth century. His articles on the American Revolution have appeared in The Journal of the American Revolution, Vermont History and Historical New Hampshire. He was an editor of Strong Ground: Mount Independence and the American Revolution, published in June 2017 by the Mount Independence Coalition. He serves on the boards of the Mount Independence Coalition and the Poultney Historical Society.
Susan Ouellette, PhD
Professor of History at St. Michael’s College in Burlington, VT, specializing in early America, including the first settlement up to the American Revolution period; Native Americans; Immigration history, especially the experience of Francophones in the Northeast; Textiles history; Women’s history; diaries and memoirs. She incorporates local places, documents, structures, and people to bring class work to life.
Willard S. Randall
After a successful 17-year career as a feature writer and investigative journalist, Willard Sterne Randall pursued advanced studies in history at Princeton University. Biographer of Benjamin and William Franklin, of Benedict Arnold, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Ethan Allen, he has co-authored collections of biographies and e-books with his wife, the biographer and award-winning poet, Nancy Nahra. As a journalist, Randall won the National Magazine Award for Public Service from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, the Standard Gravure Award, the Hillman Prize, the Loeb Award and the John Hancock Prize. His Benedict Arnold biography received four national awards and was a New York Times Notable Book. Publishers Weekly chose his biography of Jefferson as one of the ten best biographies of 1993. He received the Award of Merit of the American Revolution Round Table. He taught American history at John Cabot University in Rome and at the University of Vermont and Champlain College, where he was a Distinguished Scholar in History and is a Professor Emeritus. He is a contributing editor to MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. He lives, writes, teaches, lectures and likes to swim in Burlington, Vermont.