Meet MOA’s newest staff: Our Digital Content Creators

Hello, my name is Jordan T. Downey and I am working at MOA as an Archaeology Digital Content Creator.
Hello readers! My name is Katrina Pasierbek and I am thrilled to join the Museum of Ontario Archaeology staff as the Digital Content Creator for Education.

We are both creating some great digital content to enhance your online MOA experience.

Jordan:
Over the next few months I will be writing material for the museum’s website so that you can learn more about Ontario archaeology both before and after your visit to the museum. I plan to write a series of posts about how and why we do archaeology in Ontario and how people lived at the Lawson Site and other sites like it. I also plan to invite prominent and up-and-coming Ontario archaeologists to contribute to our website with some of their own projects and experiences.

A little bit about Jordan:

I have been doing archaeology for 10 years now, both as an academic researcher and working for archaeological consulting companies. In that time I completed a field school at the Princess Point site in Hamilton and have surveyed and excavated at dozens of sites throughout Ontario. I hold an archaeology research license from the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Sport.

Besides working on archaeology consulting teams in Ontario, I have completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, my M.A at Trent University, and I am currently completing my Ph.D at Western University. My Ph.D. research uses satellite photos to determine when and how major political changes took place in northern Peru.

I have been fortunate to get to travel to a lot of museums and archaeological sites around the world. One of my favourites is the site museum at Cahokia. Cahokia is a large, impressive, and very important archaeological site in southern Illinois and is an absolute must-see. The museum is very well done. Besides lots of incredible artifacts and informative displays, they have done a very good job of showing how archaeologists study the past and how we make interpretations about what life was like at a North American city 1500 years ago.

Katrina:
I will be spending the next three months creating educational lesson plans tailored to the programming currently offered at the MOA. We hope to extend the learning of our young visitors back into the classroom with pre- and post-museum visit lessons and activities.

A little about Katrina:
My formal education coupled with my experience working in museums will prove to be an asset for my position here at the MOA. After becoming an Ontario certified teacher I completed my Master of Arts degree in History at Western University. I am also a researcher for the First World War exhibit ‘Souterrain Impressions’, scheduled to launch in April 2015. *Click the link to see an exciting video! 
I also work at Eldon House, and volunteer at Banting House National Historic Site of Canada.

An interesting fact about me is that I was featured in a 2013 short documentary entitled “For the Dead and the Living.” Three filmmakers from Western University followed myself and fifteen other Canadian teachers to Kraków, Poland where we learned how to translate the lessons of the Holocaust to Canadian students. This experience allowed us the opportunity to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, which is by far the most moving museum I have visited.