NSU University School Viewpoint Spring 2018

23 Jennifer Stringfellow graduated from the University of Mary Washington (UMW) with a B.A. in Historic Preservation and a concentration in historic archeology and museum work. Upon graduating, she was hired by UMW to work at their Center for Historic Preservation, where they did cultural resource management work and field archeology. Ultimately deciding to pursue a graduate degree, she attended George Washington University (GWU) on scholarship, earning an M.A. in Anthropology with a concentration in museum studies. While at GWU, she was fortunate to have Smithsonian Institution employees as her professors, one of whom was from the museum’s anthropology department and hired her as an intern. Her internship with the anthropology department, housed in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, directly led to Stringfellow’s job working at the museum in their collections’ support services department. She worked as an artifact handler and helped with various collections projects throughout the museum. From there, she moved back to Florida and worked as a museum specialist at Everglades National Park. She ultimately returned to Virginia for a position with the National Museum of the Marine Corps in their restoration department. Today she works at the National Air and Space Museum, where she has been for 10 years. At the National Air and Space Museum, Stringfellow works as a museum specialist doing collections management work in the collections processing unit. She and her coworkers are the primary artifact handlers whose function is to oversee the care and long-term preservation of the objects. They work with curators and other museum professionals cataloging artifacts and preparing for long-term preservation storage, exhibitions, or outgoing loans. Stringfellow said, “My strongest area of interest in museum work is the physical handling of artifacts on a routine basis. I love looking at significant artifacts up close and seeing how they are put together. Touching a piece of history is fascinating to me.” For as long as she can remember, Stringfellow has been drawn to documentaries that study evolution, history, and human nature. She vividly remembers being in fifth grade and watching a documentary about the work of archaeologist Ivor Noël Hume at Carter’s Grove Plantation in preparation for their class trip to Williamsburg, Virginia. Coincidentally, the video resurfaced in her college-level historic preservation class. Stringfellow was a lifer at USchool—she started in preschool and remained through graduation. She has fond memories of many of her USchool teachers. “My history teachers had a wonderful way of keeping history interesting,” Stringfellow said. Her lessons in art also have served her well. “In historic preservation we do a lot of architectural drawings—it’s basically architecture backward because we are creating measured drawings of preexisting buildings (for documentation) rather than designing buildings to build,” she said. “I am also grateful to Jeanne Berkowitz for my lessons in geometry.” Although Stringfellow never imagined using geometry in the real world, she finds herself using it regularly. “I used the Pythagorean theorem while digging for artifacts in order to measure perfectly square excavation units so they will fit properly in the grid system. I also use it regularly when creating storage mounts for our artifacts,” Stringfellow said. “I am grateful for the excellent educational foundation and for the experiences that I received as a USchool student. They led me to my current career, one that gives me great satisfaction.” JENNIFER STRINGFELLOW ALUMNI HIGHLIGHTS ‘92 Cla s