Laura Crow
Museum Director, Costume Curator

Laura Crow is a Professor Emerita of Costume History & Design and curator of the UCONN Historical Costume & Textile Collection at the University of Connecticut's Department of Dramatic Arts. She has designed Costumes for Broadway, Off-Broadway and Regional Theatres and represented the USA at the Prague Quadrennial five times. Among her awards are the Drama Desk, OBIE, American Theatre Wing, and Villager in New York City, Joseph Jefferson in Chicago, Bay Area Critics and three Drama-Logue awards plus the Backstage West Garland Award for designs on the West Coast, and four ZONIs from Phoenix. She was included in the recent Lincoln Center Exhibition "Curtain Call: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance", focusing on 100 women designers from the past 100 years. Professor Crow is past Head and currently Vice Head of the Americas for the Costume Design Group for OISTAT (the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians) and acts as a Liaison for the Costume Commission and the International Commission of USITT (United States Institute of Theatre Technology). Professor Crow is proud to have been a Fulbright Senior Scholar exploring multi-culturalism in festival dress of the Philippines and has spent further time researching Carnival costumes in Cuba, Trinidad, New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro. She has authored two chapters for Masquerade: A Panorama, published by McFarland Press. As curator for the UCONN Historical Collection of Costumes & Textiles, Professor Crow created the exhibition Women of New England: Dress from the Industrial Age 1850-1900 that was displayed at the Connecticut State House, and subsequently the Benton Museum of Art and the Gallery in the Jorgenson Center for the Performing Arts on the UCONN campus. By the end, over 13,000 people saw the exhibition and learned about the lives of the women through their clothing. That exhibition was followed by two others: Princess for a Day: Wedding Gowns from 1860 - 1960 at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center; and Breaking the Glass: The American Jewish Wedding with the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. The current exhibition Beatrice Fox Auerbach: The Woman, Her World and Her Wardrobe is about the first female CEO in Hartford, Connecticut, who took over G. Fox & Co., one of the America's largest department stores, in 1939. In addition she was an important philanthropist, helping the plight of women, children and particularly orphans in Connecticut and in impoverished nations around the world. Eleanor Roosevelt was a good friend and together they worked on the World Health Organization and C.A.R.E. The exhibit is geared to encourage leadership in women of the next generation. Upcoming is Glitter and Glam Rock: 80s Fashion and AIDS.

Dr Andrew DePalma
Technical Advisor

Andrew F. Depalma, PhD, is the Director of Technology at EastCONN. With 19 years of experience in education and information technology (IT) management at UCONN, Depalma is a former Director of IT at UCONN's Center for Continuing Studies. He was a faculty member in UCONN's Neag School of Education for 10 years and has more than 10 years' experience as an administrator and faculty member in information science and knowledge management. Depalma has taught both undergraduate and graduate-level technology and media courses. Depalma holds both an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from UCONN. Depalma will be working on coordinating the effort with the High Schools, working on the museum website and continuing in his interests in K-12 learning.
"Judicious application of technology holds vast promise for improving our ability to make decisions and for creating new opportunities,"
-Andrew Depalma.

Dr Fiona Leek
Textile Curator

Fiona Leek has a Ph.D. & M.S. in Polymer Science from the Institute of Material Science at UCONN, an M.S. in Textile Science and Engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, and a B.S. in Museum Science and Archaeology at Wesleyan University. Dr. Leek has been cataloguing the museum's textile artifacts, advocating and arranging for safe storage. She will continue to explore ways to conserve this valuable collection that has textiles back to Coptic Egypt. She is additionally interested in the longevity and preservation of historical garments.

Dr Christopher Clark
Consultant

Christopher Clark, History Department Chair at the University of Connecticut, grew up in the London area. He studied at the University of Warwick, and obtained his PhD in History at Harvard. He taught at the University of York for eighteen years, and was Professor of North American History at the University of Warwick for another seven years before moving to UConn in 2005. He has held visiting fellowships at Selwyn College, Cambridge; the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution; St. Catherine's College, Oxford; and the UConn Humanities Institute. Clark is a specialist in 18th and 19th century North American and United States social and cultural history; the social history of economic life; the history of American capitalism; rural societies and industrialization; abolitionism and utopian communities; and New England.

Mary Paul
Website Designer, Full Stack Developer

Mary Paul is a technical director, designer, and website developer. She graduated from UCONN with a BFA in theatre design and production and works as a freelance technician and designer in film and theater at Yale, Long Wharf Theater, Hartford Stage, and in New York City. She is also a full-stack dev, blogger, and rogue photographer. See more of her work here.

Josh Winiarski
Website Developer, Social Media

Josh Winiarski is a senior at the University of Connecticut, graduating in the Spring 2016. He is studying theater design with a focus in lighting and video design. His theater career began in high school when he went to a performing arts magnet high school in Willimantic, CT. He pursued technical theater and went to UCONN to further his studies. Some highlights from his time at UCONN include the video design for Connecticut Repertory Theatre's production of The Laramie Project, where he created the setting and political agenda for each of the many scenes, and as the shadow projection and lighting designer for Connecticut Repertory Theatre's Band of the Black Hand, that was staged as a black and white film noir production. Josh has moved into website development and social media during his last two years at UCONN, and "The Virtual Museum" has provided a platform for professional development.
Joshwiniarski.com

Special Thanks

This is a huge project that has been under construction for over 20 years. This means that many of our staff are no longer working with us, but we have not forgotten all that they have done.

Volunteers

Emily Roe 2014
Madison Gretzky 2014
Grace Allaire 2015
Zach Allaire 2015
Aimee Allaire 2015
Iris Allaire 2015

Staff

Angela Armijo
3D photography, Exhibit Preparation
2011-2013

Angela Armijo is a Costume Designer and Technician from San Francisco, California. Since relocating to the East Coast, she has designed and assisted shows in Boston and Los Angeles. She has attended the Costume Design Program at Emerson College for two years before finishing her BFA in Costume Design at the University of Connecticut. She currently lives in Los Angeles

Fan Zhang
Restoration, Exhibit Preparation
2011-2013

Fan Zhang is a New York based costume designer. She is originally from China, and her experience in China has been primarily makeup design and stylist work for film and television. She is now expanding her field to include costume design for theatre and film. She received her MFA at the University of Connecticut in 2014. She has designed costumes for "The Three Musketeers", which wins the KCACTF National Awards for Excellence in Costume Design. Her recent credits also include "Mallorca" at Abingdon Theatre Company in New York.

Dominique Canestri
Program Director, Grant Writer
2012-2014

Dominique Canestri graduated from UCONN in May of 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, with a minor in History. Over the course of her collegiate career, Ms. Canestri worked with Professor Crow on many different aspects of the collection - from accessioning pieces, to dressing mannequins for photographs and helping to write grants. Though not in her major, Ms. Canestri developed a deep love for costumes and historical pieces during her employment with the collection. Ms. Canestri is currently the Director of Business Development for a construction firm in North Haven, CT. She is also freelance writing and editing for Sports Debate Network. In her spare time, Ms. Canestri tutors high school students in order to prepare them for the SAT's.

Maarit Uusitalo
Curatorial Associate
2012-2013

Maarit Uusitalo, MA, is a scenographer, teacher and a doctoral candidate from Finland. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled: Animated Costumes: Costume Design Process and Digitalization in Animated/CGI Films. Uusitalo studied Fashion Design (BA Hons) at the University of Central England, and Costume Design (MA) at Aalto University, Finland. Her MA thesis is entitled: Inigo Jones: Design and Symbols in Stage Costume for Court Masques of the Late Renaissance. Since 2004, Uusitalo has designed costumes and sets for numerous Finnish theatre and opera productions and she has been teaching regularly at the University of Applied Sciences in Vaasa, University of Connecticut and Aalto University. In 2013, Uusitalo was a visiting scholar at the University of Connecticut, working with Professor Laura Crow creating the Virtual Costume Museum, a historical costume database and co-curated historical dress exhibitions. Uusitalo is part of the Costume in Focus Research Group and she is a member OISTAT Costume Design Group.

Xiupeng "Jeff" Wang
IT Technician
2012-2013

Xiupeng Wang is currently a 4th year Ph.D. student in Economics who is now working on his thesis in labor economics. He has a wide interest on topics regarding human capital, job displacement, inequality, discrimination and immigration. Xiupeng holds a master degree in Physics where his research focused on the evolution mechanism of solar filaments and coronal mass eruptions. He worked as an IT technician on the virtual museum program from 2012 to 2013 where he helped to setup the photo studio, debug the web portal and improve the database. He served as the president of Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) and the president of Association of Graduate Economics Students (AGES) at University of Connecticut. He also served his time as the graduate student representative in the University Master Planning Advisory Committee and the senator of Graduate Student Senate.

Xiachen Zhou
3D Photography, Exhibit preparation
2012-2013

Xiachen received her MFA in costume design from the University of Connecticut under professor Laura Crow in 2014 . Since graduating, Xiachen has been working as a costume designer for Connecticut Repertory Theatre, in Storrs; the Media Theatre outside of Philadelphia, the Tibbits Opera House in south central Michigan, the Bay View music festival in northern Michigan and the Westhoff Theatre in northern Illinois and she has worked as an assistant designer for Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico; Her international credits include: the Boat Theatre at Shanghai Expo and the Singapore National Theatre. In the spring of 2016, Xiachen is designing The Seagull for Gamut Theatre in Harrisburg, PA. To know more about her work, please visit: www.xiachenzhou.com

Heather Lesieur
Content Manager
2013-2014

Heather has a strong emphasis in costume history and in the construction techniques of period garments. She is in the Master of Fine Arts three-year terminal degree program in the Department of Dramatic Arts, School of Fine Arts. She designed the operas Noye's Fludde and L'Enfant et le Sortilege in 2015, and was the assistant designer for Twelfth Night for Connecticut Repertory Theatre and is the costume designer for Spamalot at CRT.

Eric Wilson
Graphic Design
2014-2015

Eric Wilson is a 2015 graduate from Manchester Community College in Game Deign and is now attending Becker College in Wooster, MA majoring in Computer Game Design with a planned graduation in spring of 2018.

Sulin Park
System Developer
2014-2015

Sulin Park is an undergraduate at the University of Connecticut studying computer science and economics. Her interests in photography and database management brought her into this project. She is also a teacher's assistant for Girls Who Code (girlswhocode.com). Sulin's other interests include, but are not limited to: peach rings, the internet, hand-dripped coffee, 50mm lenses, yoga, attempting to resolve social and spatial disparities through research programming, and almost all dogs.

Timothy Nolan
Content Manager
2014-2015

Tim is an undergraduate student at the University of Connecticut majoring in bio-medical engineering who likes to play with photography and automation in his spare time.