We’re Museums Alaska

Christine Carpenter is passionate about museums. As a designer, artist, and project manager, Christine uses her skills to work collaboratively with museums to find opportunities and limit challenges. After completing her MFA in Museum Exhibition Planning & Design, she relocated to Juneau to work with ExhibitAK, an exhibit design firm. She still works with ExhibitAK while also maintaining her own company, Liaise Studio: a planning, design, and art firm. Christine uses design and art as a tool to communicate, distill, and better understand the world around us. In collaboration with the communities she serves, she has designed exhibits, websites, interpretive panels, and master plans all over the state. After more than 10 years of working with museums across Alaska, Christine is in a unique position to serve on the Museums Alaska board: she understands the broad needs and opportunities facing Alaskan museums. She would be honored to continue to support museums in this new capacity.

Cindi’s focus on arts and culture, tourism and economic development, and philanthropy have led to travels throughout Alaska for work and pleasure. She has served as board member and presenter for the Petersburg Arts Council, founding member and first Chair of the Petersburg Community Foundation, past board member and then Director of the Clausen Memorial Museum, was a member of the Alaska Folk Festival board, and as a board member for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeast Alaska, helping foster connections to our communities, their inhabitants and their stories. Cindi shares her love of the arts across miles, with young and old alike. As a mixed media artist with a special interest in printmaking, she has curated and participated in group and solo exhibitions from Ketchikan to Fairbanks, most recently serving an instructor for Artfest 2023 in Yakutat. Her artwork and photography appears in various Alaskan publications, collections, websites and installations.

Heather Pennington is the Refinery Accounting Manager for the Marathon Refinery in Kenai. Originally from Ohio, Heather recently transferred to Alaska with her husband, Emmett, son Myles and 3 dogs in January 2024. Heather has been a regular advocate for museums, having participated in Museum Advocacy Day hosted by the American Alliance of Museums for 3 years. She’s previously held positions on the Massillon Museum board including Chairwoman and Treasurer over the course of 8 years with the board. Heather has also held board positions with the Canton Ballet and Child, Adolescent Behavioral Health, and the Soroptimist International of the Americans Canton, Ohio Club and Anchorage, Alaska Club. Heather holds a bachelor’s degree in Managerial and Financial Accounting from the University of Findlay and an MBA from Walsh University. Heather currently lives in Kenai with her family and dogs; and is passionate about art, history, and new experiences.

Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi is an art historian and museum consultant based in Homer, Alaska. She currently serves as a program director for the Journey to What Matters: Increased Alaska Native Art & Culture program at The CIRI Foundation. A Ninilchik Tribal member, Nadia is passionate about increasing opportunities for Alaska Native involvement in museum work and correcting information in museum records. She also loves visiting historical collections of Alaska Native art and helping to connect collections with community. Nadia has a PhD in art history from the University of Washington.

Lauren Johnson serves as the President and Executive Director of the Chugach Heritage Foundation (CHF), the non-profit arm of Chugach, and the President and Interim Executive Director of the Chugach Heritage Museum & Archaeological Repository.

Johnson graduated from University of Alaska Anchorage in 2016 with a Bachelor of Business Administration Management. She then went on to complete Alaska Pacific University’s Alaska Native Executive Leadership Program (ANELP), and in 2019, she graduated with a Master of Business Administration.

Today as President and Executive Director, she manages the $33 million plus CHF educational endowment and oversees an organization that has awarded nearly $11 million in scholarships to Chugach shareholders and lineal descendants. In total, this represents more than 4,300 individuals who have received education funding assistance to pursue their academic and vocational dreams. Johnson has further supported education and mentorship for our shareholders and descendants through the establishment of the Chugach Connections Forum and the Chugach Native Professionals group.

In addition to CHF’s regular operations and the annual educational assistance that Johnson manages, she still oversees all of the work that makes Nuuciq Spirit Camp happen every year, orchestrating the many arrangements that bring people together from throughout the Chugach region for two-weeks of Sugt’stun language and dance classes, subsistence education, arts and craft, and other cultural related activities. Her duties also include hosting Chugach’s annual Russian New Year celebration and an array of culture workshops that take place throughout the year, each serving to keep the Chugach culture alive and vibrant.

Beyond Chugach, Johnson sits on the board of directors for the Alaska Native Heritage Center and Co-Chairs the ANCSA Educational Consortium. Without question, she has risen through the ranks of Chugach to become a shining star of the Chugach region.

Allison Stacy is a jack of all trades. She began at George Washington’s Mount Vernon as a program manager. Introduced to historic preservation, her passion for archaeology grew, leading to fieldwork and specializing in Section 106 compliance. As a strong advocate for ethical practice in cultural heritage management, she became an Investigative Analyst for the Manhattan Antiquities Trafficking Unit. She oversaw provenance research and property law procedures, working on repatriation cases worldwide. Born in Fairbanks, she returned to Alaska as the Curator of Collections & Exhibits at the Seward Museum. Allison’s appointment to the Board would greatly benefit ongoing efforts to further develop ethical practices within Alaskan Museums. She envisions Museums Alaska becoming one of the leaders in ethical museum practice nationwide. Her collaborative approach ensures that all stakeholders, from the directors to volunteers, are considered when developing policy and practice.

Benjamin is a Dena’ina and Sugpiaq who is serving as the Director of Indigenous Research at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. Benjamin has worked within the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues/INTERPOL towards the repatriation and rematriation of the material culture of Indigenous peoples across the world. He is currently studying the history and impacts of the boarding schools within Alaska, working with such entities such like: Department of Interior, US Senate, various AK Native Tribes, Museums Alaska etc. He also helps create and maintain materials for the Alaska Native Heritage Center’s Museum. Recently, Benjamin has been instrumental in the return of significant material culture to Alaska from ecclesial repositories taken during the boarding school era that are either endangered artforms or thought to have been extinct. Benjamin’s work with Museums Alaska has been significant to telling this part of Alaska Native history and the return of culture to the communities it was taken from. Benjamin has two master’s degrees from Princeton and has done extensive work within the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Society in the linguistics and interpretation of Ancient Near-Eastern manuscripts/material culture. It would be his honor to join the board of directors for Museums Alaska to continue to help tell the stories of the original peoples and to help the next generation thrive.