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Illinois State Museum System Board of Directors
The Illinois State Museum Board of Directors is a group of eleven dedicated Illinois citizens appointed by the Governor who advise the Director of the Department of Natural Resources in all matters pertaining to maintenance, extension, and usefulness of the Illinois State Museum; make recommendations concerning the appointment of a new museum director whenever a vacancy occurs in that position; and review the budget of the Illinois State Museum and make recommendations with reference thereto to the Governor through the Director of the Department. The members are appointed for two-year terms based on their qualifications and interests related to the fields of museum activity.
Officers
Donna Sack, Chairwoman
Donna Sack has nearly 30 years of historic site and museum association experience. She currently serves as Vice President of Community Engagement and Audience at Naper Settlement. She previously worked as Executive Director of the Association of Midwest Museums, serving museums in an eight-state region.
Sack was also Executive Director of the Illinois Association of Museums where she oversaw the transition from being a state-operated entity into a self-supporting nonprofit. A graduate of the University of Connecticut, she attended the renowned Seminar for Historical Administration, an intensive program for history professionals. She was first appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2016.
Lisa Yun Lee, Vice Chairwoman
Dr. Lisa Yun Lee is the Director of the National Public Housing Museum. She has served as the Director of the UIC School of Art & Art History where she is an Associate Professor of Art History and Gender and Women’s Studies.
As the previous Director of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, she oversaw a renovation of the house, installed a new permanent exhibition, and reinvigorated public programming at one of our nation’s most important historic sites. She is also the co-founder of The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, an organization dedicated to creating spaces for dialogue and dissent and for reinvigorating civil society. She serves on the boards of the American Alliance of Museums, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, 3Arts, and the Rebuild Foundation. Lee received her Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Bryn Mawr College and Doctorate in German Studies from Duke University. She was appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2020.
Sarah Doherty, Secretary
Dr. Sarah Doherty is an Associate Professor of U.S. and Public History at North Park University Chicago where she teaches courses in urban and suburban America, American pluralism, and public history.
She has served on the Board of Directors for the Oak Park River Forest Museum since 2016 and co-curated the award-winning exhibit “Open House: The Legacy of Fair Housing.” Doherty received a B.A. in International Affairs with a Third World concentration from Xavier University, a M.A. in Public History and Museum Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a doctoral degree in U.S. and Public History from Loyola University Chicago. She holds memberships in the National Council on Public History, American Historical Association, and Urban History Association. She was appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2020.
Board Members
Leverne Backstrom
Leverne Backstrom has served on the Board of Directors of the Katherine Dunham Center for Arts and Humanities since 2005 and is currently President Pro Tempore. Leverne is a retired 9th grade Language Arts teacher at East St. Louis Senior High School and a former organizer for the Illinois Federation of Teachers. She is member of the Olivette Park Neighborhood Association, East St. Louis Planning Commission and Trinity United Methodist Church. She earned her Bachelor of Science from Kansas Wesleyan University. She was appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2020.
John Barker
Biography and picture forthcoming.
Tamira Brennan
Dr. Tamira Brennan is Section Head of Curation at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has been doing archaeology since 1999, primarily in research-based Cultural Resource Management settings ranging from fieldwork to administration.
This work includes a seven-year-long stretch as a field supervisor, lead researcher, and ceramic analyst on the Illinois State Archaeological Survey’s investigations at East St. Louis, one of the largest late pre-Columbian sites in the Eastern Woodlands. She has also recently been active in excavations and research on early historic periods in Illinois and Missouri. Brennan earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and both her Master of Arts and Doctorate of Philosophy from Southern Illinois University. She was appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2020.
Andrea Carlson
Andrea Carlson is an artist who has worked with a variety of museums, galleries and educational institutions on the topic of Native American art. Her work has been acquired by the British Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the National Gallery of Canada.
She has served on several Native American advisory boards for museums and lectures on museum studies. Carlson is a member of the Ojibwe and speaks Anishinaabemowin, the original Indigenous language of the area that is now Illinois. She was appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2020.
Beth Shadur
Beth Shadur is an artist who has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions including at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Drawing Center in New York City and the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York.
She has created over 150 large, public murals as public, private, and community art projects in both the United States and Great Britain. She is an Artist-in-Education for the Illinois Arts Council and has served as a visiting artist at many colleges and universities. Ms. Shadur has lectured widely on community arts and has curated numerous national exhibitions. Shadur is a Thomas Watson Fellow from Brown University and has been awarded numerous national and international residencies. Shadur has served as the Gallery Director at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, Illinois for nearly six years. She was first appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2016.
Chris Pappan
Chris Pappan is an artist of Kanza, Osage and Lakota descent. His cited influences are Heavy Metal and Juxtapoz magazines, and the Lowbrow art movement with its cultural roots in 1970s underground comics, punk, and hot rod cultures. His art reflects the dominant culture’s distorted perceptions of Native peoples and is based on the Plains Native art tradition known as Ledger Art. Chris is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and a nationally recognized painter and ledger artist. His work is in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian (Washington D.C); The Field Museum of Natural History; The Newberry Library, The North American Native Museum (Geneva, Switzerland); Missoula Art Museum (Missoula, Montana); and The Spencer Museum of Art (Lawrence, Kansas), among others. Chris recently exhibited his work at the Field Museum in Drawing on Tradition, a two-year exhibition and intervention into the decades old and problematic Native North American Hall, which has changed little since its establishment in the 1950s. The exhibition presented a contemporary view of Indigenous perspectives, acting as an agent of change within the institution. He was appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2022.
Nikhil Trivedi
Nikhil Trivedi works as the Director of Engineering at the Art Institute of Chicago overseeing the development of interactive applications for web, mobile and in-gallery experiences.
He is a regular contributor at The Incluseum blog. His writing has been featured in Model View Culture, Fwd: Museums, and the Journal of Museum Education. Trivedi is also a co-creator of the Visitors of Color blog, where they document the experiences of people from marginalized communities who visit—and don't visit—museums. He earned his Bachelor of Science from DePaul University in Human Computer Interaction. He was appointed to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board in 2020.