Meet our Education Team!

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Katherine Hodge, BA, MS   she/her/hers 
Youth and Family Program Manager 

Katherine Hodge graduated from the University of Chicago with a double major in Anthropology and History and earned a Master of Science in Science Education from Montana State University. She has previously worked at Project Archaeology as the Interim Director and at The Field Museum of Natural History. Her research focuses on scientific accessibility, the ethics of museums and their collections, and Inca architecture. At ISAC, she teaches, writes new lessons, and develops new programs for guests to enjoy and explore the galleries and history of the ancient Near East. She has excavated sites in Peru, Spain, as well as Tell Keisan in Israel. 

            Any questions? Email kwhodge@uchicago.edu

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Chloe Brettman   she/her/hers 
Lead Education Facilitator  

Chloe Brettman is an environmental and energy history major at the college currently working on a thesis about the history of uranium mining in Colorado. Her favorite artifact in the galleries at the ISAC Museum is the Pazuzu demon figurine. When she is not exploring the ancient world at the ISAC Museum with students, she loves exploring the city of Chicago and spending time in the mountains in Colorado. 

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Samantha Suppes, BA   she/her/hers 
Education Facilitator  

Samantha is a doctoral student at the University of Chicago studying the history and archaeology of ancient Israel and West Asia. She has excavated at the sites of Ashkelon, Tel Shimron, Tel Keisan, and Megiddo. She loves visiting and teaching in museums, especially museums about history, like the Penn Museum and the ISAC Museum. She especially loves art of humans and animals like the lamassu and other Assyrian wall art at the ISAC Museum.

Adrianna Layne, BA   she/her/hers 
Education Facilitator  

Adrianna Layne is an Egyptology MA student with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, studying ancient Egyptian religion and mythology. She graduated from the University of Chicago with BAs in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Anthropology. Adrianna worked as a Preschool teacher for 3 years prior to her time at ISAC and has always had a passion for teaching, so in this role, she combines her love for the ancient world and teaching.

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Natalie (Nat) Larsen   she/her/hers 
Education Facilitator

Natalie "Nat" Larsen is a second-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Global Studies and a minor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Natalie brings her interests in international civilizations and Arabic language to ISAC educational programming. Having taught Middle Schoolers with Breakthrough Houston, Natalie is excited to continue working in education with families and schools.  

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Madeleine Roberts-Ganim   she/her/hers 
Education Facilitator

Madeleine Roberts-Ganim is a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in History and French. Throughout her undergraduate career, Madeleine has worked as a summer camp teacher, a curriculum developer, and a tutor for K-12 students. These experiences have all fostered her love for teaching. Madeleine is passionate about using museum education to both connect students with the past and to help students learn more about the present in the process. 

Tasha Vorderstrasse, PhD   she/her/hers 
University and Continuing Education Program Coordinator 

Tasha Vorderstrasse is the Manager, Continuing Education Program at the at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago. She received her PhD in Near Eastern archaeology from the University of Chicago in 2004. Her work forcuses on understanding the identity of past communities through archaeological and textual evidence as well as the interconnections between different regions. She administers and teaches in the ISAC adult education program, and also does teacher workshops and tours of the ISAC Museum for UChicago students and other groups on a variety of topics from post-colonialism and the ISAC to legal history, medicine, and queens and princesses in the ancient world. Her classes for the ISAC have included Nubian Queens, Red Sea and Indian Ocean Trade, and Frank Lloyd Wright's unrealized plans for Baghdad. She recently curated the ISAC Museum special exhibition Antoin Sevruguin: Past and Present and edited the catalog. In 2015, she was the co-curator of the ISAC Museum special exhibition A Cosmopolitan City: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Old Cairo. She has excavated throughout the Middle East, primarily in Turkey, but was also the co-director of the ISAC excavations at the site of Ambroyi in Armenia.