Voices of the Ancients Faculty
Lianne Bennett, Facilitator, is a high school teacher in Deland, Florida. Lianne received her BA from Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia and her M. Ed. From University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. She has taught middle school and high school reading for 34 years and currently works with ESE students and their parents. Lianne became involved with Project Archaeology in 2011 when she attended the Investigating Shelter: Kingsley Plantation workshop in Cumberland Island, GA. The following summer she attended the Project Archaeology Leadership Academy in Bozeman, MT. She currently serves on the Project Archaeology Leadership Team, trains teachers through facilitating workshops in Florida, reviews and edits new curriculum, and has co-authored Investigating Shelter: A Light Station and Investigating Puzzle House. Lianne is a strong advocate for both formal and informal archaeology education and will lead sessions and model curricular materials.
Kathleen Broeder, Special Collections Librarian in the Department of Library & Information Science at Southern Utah University. She holds two master’s degrees from the University at Albany, SUNY, in Information Science and History. Kathleen is interested in the interplay of local history with primary sources and uses archival organizational structures to share both with the community at-large. She will help teachers search the archives for oral history interviews, documents, photos, and artifacts related to the history of the Paiute people.
Barbara Frank, Director of the SUU Archaeology Repository and Archives, has worked as a professional archaeologist in Utah for 40 years, and has served as curator of the federally recognized archaeology repository on the SUU campus since 1995. She directed and worked at the SUU archaeological field schools for 20+ years. She is an expert in the archaeology of southwestern Utah and is well versed in all aspects of her profession. She will help teachers to connect to the objects of material culture that ancient people left behind in a meaningful way.
Autumn Gillard, Cultural Educator, is a maternal descendant of the Cedar Band of Paiutes, which is a part of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah. She is the daughter of the late Delphina Edmo member of the Cedar Band of Paiutes, she is the granddaughter of Nola Zuniga member of the Cedar Band of Paiutes and is the great granddaughter of Nober Zuniga also a member of the Cedar Band of Paiutes. She also shares a Ute and Shoshone Bannock heritage. Autumn graduated from Southern Utah University magnum cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and a minor in Psychology. She is currently working on a master’s degree from New Mexico Highlands University in Cultural Resource Management. She is the Cultural Resource Manager for the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah. Autumn specializes in cultural awareness, tribal diversity, and inclusivity. She has expertise in both cultural and applied anthropological studies and the benefits of cultural reconnection. She also specializes in southern Paiute astronomy and ethnobotany and will lead sessions on those topics.
Dr. Leah Guenther, Facilitator , has been a Chicago Public Schools teacher for the past fifteen years. She currently teaches 7th and 8th grade English Language Arts and Social Studies. Leah received her doctorate from Northwestern University in literature. She has published reviews of her reading and SEL interventions in Mid-Western Educational Researcher and Harvard Educational Review. Leah serves on the Project Archaeology Leadership Team and will lead sessions and model curricular materials.
Virgil Johnson, Cultural Educator, has served as Chairman of the Confederated Tribe of the Goshute and as the Chairman for the Tribes of Utah where he met with Federal Government officials regarding Native American policies. He is also a retired teacher, principal, and coach and currently serves as ex-officio member of the Project Archaeology Leadership Team. As an educator, he attended many seminars: 1. Dartmouth College for Lewis and Clark expedition and Native American policy with the federal government. 2. James Madison home, study of historical documents of James Madison. 3. Study of the Civil Rights movement in Atlanta, Georgia. 4. Jackson Hole, Wyoming, study of early historical documents of Founding Fathers. 5. Austin, Texas for academics of AVID for school academic program. 6. Study of Oregon, California, Mormon Trail in Wyoming. 7. Moscow, Idaho for Social Studies curriculum writing. 8. Albuquerque, New Mexico for political process. 9. Wayne County in Utah for study of Anthropology on hands experiences. 10. Several state social studies seminars. His experience and background are rare and invaluable to educators. He will facilitate lessons, lead hands-on experiences, and provide perspectives and insights on archaeology and education from an Indigenous viewpoint.
Samantha Kirkley, Co-director/Facilitator, is the Operations and Professional Development Director of the Project Archaeology program, currently headquartered at Southern Utah University. She has offered professional development workshops for K-12 teachers yearly for the past decade and co-authored Project Archaeology: Investigating a Fremont Pithouse. She has also been a professional archaeologist since 2008 and is a Lecturer in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at SUU. Throughout her career she has developed a network of descendant community members, professional colleagues, state and federal contacts, teachers, community partners, and university students that will contribute to the success of the NEH workshops. She will coordinate and organize the logistics, set up and maintain the website, and model the curriculum lessons.
David Maxwell, GIS Lab Director , is a professor at Southern Utah University in Geospatial Sciences. He will be instrumental in helping teachers see the Fremont world using spatial technology.
Dr. Jeanne M. Moe, Co-director/Facilitator, is the Curriculum Director for the Project Archaeology program. She has worked in heritage education for more than 35 years, mostly while employed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). She helped launch the national Project Archaeology program in Utah in the early 1990s and coordinated efforts to bring the program to other states. Jeanne served as the national director of the program from 2001 until her retirement from BLM in 2018. She led the development of all Project Archaeology materials and their distribution since 2001. Still active in heritage education, she is a founding member of the Institute for Heritage Education and currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors. From 2020 to 2024, she served as the editor for the Journal of Archaeology and Education, an online publication highlighting archaeology education programs and research. Jeanne will lead specific sessions, model curricular materials, and ensure overall continuity and quality of the professional development.
Dr. Darren Parry, Cultural Educator/Historian, is the former Chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation. Darren serves on the Board of Directors for Utah Humanities and PBS Utah. He attended the University of Utah and Weber State University and received his bachelor’s degree in education. Darren is the author of The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History and teaches in the Environmental Humanities department at the University of Utah. He lectures around the country on Native American issues surrounding history and Indigenous views related to sustainability. He recently gave a lecture at the University of Copenhagen and spoke about Indigenous views on climate and environment. His passions in life are his wife Melody, seven children and seventeen grandchildren. His other passion is his Tribal family and wants to make sure that those who have gone before him are not forgotten. Darren will be instrumental in setting the stage for teaching difficult history through archaeology and oral history.
Rick and Rena Pikyavit, Cultural Educators, are co-authors of Investigating a Fremont Pithouse curriculum for 3-5 grades. Together, their ancestry represents five of the tribes currently residing in Utah, some of whom lived near Clear Creek Canyon for generations. Rick and Rena are fierce protectors of the land and cultural resources and have worked as cultural interpreters at the Fremont Indian State Park for many years where they generously share their knowledge, stories, and humor. Teachers will have engaging discussions with them while visiting Clear Creek Canyon.
Eileen Tinhorn Quintana, Cultural Educator, was born in Bluff, Utah. She spent her early childhood living on the Navajo Nation Reservation. She has served as the Coordinator for Nebo Title VI Education Program for the last 27 years; Eileen’s focus is to increase the graduation rates among American Indian students. In 2024, she was recognized by University of Utah American Indian Resource Center (Native Excellence Awardee) for Prek-12th grade students. In 2010, under her leadership the Nebo Indian Education received an Exemplary Indian Education Award from the national Catching the Dream organization, and an Excellent Work-Indian Education Summer School from the Utah Division of Indian Affairs. She was recognized by the Utah State Office of Education with a Life Skills Award in 2008. Eileen was selected as one of Utah’s American Graduate Champions by Utah Education Network in 2015. In 2017, Eileen became a Running Strong for American Indian Youth Dreamstarter Teacher, and for the last six years Nebo Indian Education has been selected as a mentor program for Running Strong Dreamstarters. Eileen sits on board of Directors for Adopt-A-Native Elder Program (ANE) as well as serving as an ex-officio member of the Project Archaeology Leadership Team. Eileen is a mother, grandmother and wife to Richard Quintana, they live in Spanish Fork Utah, and enjoy their five children, five grandchildren and two great grandbabies. She will facilitate lessons, lead hands-on experiences, and provide perspectives and insights on archaeology and education from an Indigenous viewpoint.
Jedediah Rogers, Environmental and Public Historian, Jedediah Rogers is an environmental and public historian of modern America with interests in the intersection of land, culture, and religion in the American West. His first monograph, Roads in the Wilderness: Conflict in Canyon Country (University of Utah Press, 2013), won the Wallace Stegner Prize in American Environmental or Western History. He is co-editor of The Earth Will Appear as the Garden of Eden: Essays on Mormon Environmental History (University of Utah Press, 2019) and editor of The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History (Signature, 2014) and In the President’s Office: The Diaries of L. John Nuttall, 1879-1892 (Signature, 2007), recipient of the Handcart Award from the Mountain West Center at Utah State University.
Rogers is currently acquiring editor at the University of Utah Press and was formerly co-editor of Utah Historical Quarterly and a senior state historian with the Division of State History. He serves as a consulting historian for a variety of client, including currently the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and Clyde Companies, and formerly the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the Utah Attorney General’s office, private law firms, and other clients. For the Ute Tribe he is writing an Indigenous history of the Aniknuche Incarceration (formerly the Posey War).
Beyond family, his heart lies in the Wasatch Mountains and in Bluff, Utah, where one day he hopes to raise chickens. He will give a presentation about the value of oral histories and give tips on how to help your students to document their family members.
Richard Talbot, Archaeologist and former Director of the Office of Public Archaeology at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT. Rich has worked on many of the Fremont excavations in Utah and is considered an expert on the subject. He will speak to teachers about the excavations in Clear Creek Canyon and how the Fremont adapted to diverse landscapes and climate.
Charmaine Thompson, Archaeologist, has devoted much of her career to connecting past people with present people through archaeology. She is a retired Forest Service archaeologist who will contribute to the workshops in an auxiliary/partnering capacity by providing interpretation at sites and modeling curricular materials. She will also discuss stewardship and participate in the panel discussion on the inclusion of indigenous people in the American narrative.
Brent Tom, Paiute Singer and Educator, will provide a brief cultural presentation about round dance songs and their significance to his people. He will sing and drum Round Dance songs at the conclusion of each session of the Voices of the Ancients program.
Eleanor Tom, Cultural Educator, publishes traditional Paiute stories for elementary-age children and teaches Paiute language to the community. She is one of about ten people who can still speak the Paiute language. She will instruct teachers about Paiute culture, language, and history at the SUU Special Collections library.