Kate Ayres, BA (Hons), MA, DHer  she/her/hers

Assistant Director of Programs and Education

Kate holds degrees in Archaeology and Museum and Artefact Studies from Durham University, UK, and a Professional Doctorate in Heritage from the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Her thesis Entitled Building Utopia: Heritage Management, Sense of Place and Identity in Milton Keynes, UK, and Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, offers up a set of practical guidelines for collaborative working between community heritage organizations and trained heritage practitioners through a hybrid model of heritage management. For over sixteen years she directed museums both in England and the United Arab Emirates, where she was Director of Museums to the Government of Ras Al Khaimah overseeing the strategic development of the National Museum and establishing an education department. Most recently, Kate lectured in both Museum and Heritage studies at Durham University to undergraduate and graduate students, teaching a course on Museum Principles and Practice where she originated lectures on Museum Accreditation and creative grant writing. She is the co-author of a popular history book on archaeology, as well as writing several exhibition guides and museum publications. Kate provides oversight to all ISAC’s education and outreach programs, including the monthly lecture series, Youth & Family Programs, and Continuing Education. 

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.

Madeleine Roberts-Ganim BA (Hons)   she/her/hers 
Youth and Family Program Coordinator 

Madeleine Roberts-Ganim majored in History and French at UChicago graduating in 2003. She taught English in France for nine months before accepting her current position in fall 2024. 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. 

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.