Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center

Kimberly Hatcher-White, Executive Director

Kimberly Hatcher-White (Mashantucket Pequot) was named Executive Director of the Museum and Research Center in September, 2006, succeeding Theresa Bell (Mashantucket Pequot), who had held the position since 1994. Ms. Hatcher-White oversees all aspects of the facility, including the building financial operations, staff administration, policy development, collections growth and management, public programming, and scholarly and archaeological research conducted on behalf of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.

She is a magna cum laude graduate of Eastern Connecticut State University where she majored in Sociology and Applied Social Relations and minored in Anthropology. She has worked for her tribe in various capacities since 1994. In January 2002, Kimberly began working at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in the Research Department. She worked intensively with the museum’s collections and exhibits as Registrar/Collections Manager providing for the long-term care and preservation of the tribe’s cultural heritage. Kimberly also played an instrumental role in the museum’s 2004 IMLS National Leadership Grant for Museums in the Community project aimed at fostering communication and cooperation among six northeastern Native Museums and Cultural Centers. She also trained at the Jekyll Island Management Institute, affiliated with the Southeastern Museum Conference (SEMC) as part of her training for her current position. She is also enrolled in the Certificate Program in Museum Studies at Tufts University and anticipates graduating in the spring of 2007.

Kimberly holds membership in the New England Museum Association (NEMA), American Association of Museums (AAM) and the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH) and is on the Native Advisory Board at Boston Children’s Museum.

A descendent of the Anna Williams family line, Ms. Hatcher-White was born and raised in Willimantic, Connecticut, and is the youngest daughter of tribal elder Marion Madeline Harris-Hatcher.

Dr. Kevin A. McBride, Director of Research

In addition to supervising the Museum’s Research Department, McBride oversees field study programs on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation for graduate students and directs all ongoing archaeological excavations and ethnohistorical research for the Tribe.

Dr. McBride was approached in 1983 by Richard Hayward, Chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council, about conducting archaeological research on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation. At the time, Dr. McBride was Director of Public Archaeology Survey Team, Inc., and an Anthropology Research Associate at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, where he is currently an Assistant Professor of Anthropology.

A frequent guest lecturer and author of scholarly articles, Dr. McBride is currently writing two volumes, The Fox People: Ethnohistory of the Mashantucket Pequot, and Long Pond: The Archaeology and Social History of a Seventeenth Century Mashantucket Pequot Cemetery. His research interests include the prehistory and ethnohistory of eastern North America, the historic archaeology of Euro-Americans, settlement systems, and paleoethnobotany.

Dr. McBride is a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the American Anthropological Association, and the Society for Historic Archaeology and Ethnohistory. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Museum of Natural History (1986-1988) and of the Governor's Task Force on Indian Affairs (1988-1991). He received his bachelor's degree from Assumption College, and his master's and doctoral degrees in archaeology from the University of Connecticut.

Doug Currie, Head of Conservation

Doug Currie, Head of Conservation for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, has been a conservation consultant for the last 18 years. He began working as a consultant for the design and development of laboratory and collections storage areas and museum environment standards for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum project in 1992.

Mr. Currie did his undergraduate work in art history, and received a master's degree in historical archaeology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. His graduate work included the study of archaeological metals at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and two years as a researcher on medieval metals in the Research Laboratory of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He has been a consulting analyst for the Department of Archaeological Research at Colonial Williamsburg since 1993, and from 1992-95, was the archaeological conservator for an urban highway project in Boston, which required the treatment of more than 100,000 objects from the 17th and 18th centuries.