Mandy Heeren Email & Phone Number

Cedar Falls, Ia, Us

Cedar Falls, Iowa, United States

Working with the University of Northern Iowa Museum, specifically with the Rural Schools collection

Des Moines, Iowa, United States

In this role I aid in our visitor's experience through friendly customer service and knowledge of all things antique, vintage, and collectible.

Waterloo, Iowa, United States

Through the semester, my main task was working through the district's backlog. This included using Past Perfect, cataloging donations, and moving items into storage using archival supportive materials. Additionally, I assisted in the deinstallation of a major exhibit and digitized photographs.

Rod Library, University Of Northern Iowa

I assisted our leadership team with training and organizing new interns and community members, digitally preserve historic photo collections from donors, create metadata for each photo (including editing with Adobe Creative Suite applications), and researched to add more context to the photos, collections, and archive as a whole.At the beginning of the summer I was awarded the Koob Fund for Student Community Engagement Scholarship, enabling me to work with Fortepan IA through August. During this time my work transitioned to creating a handbook for Fortepan IA to use both in our upcoming series of workshops as well as for training new interns and volunteers in the future. Following the end of the scholarship period, Fortepan IA hired me to assist in hosting both the virtual and in-person workshops.

Rod Library, University Of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa.

As a Fortepan intern, our duty is to assist in digitally preserving our donor's historical photo collections and uploading them to our public archive for public use. In this role, I worked with several collections. This included editing photos with Adobe Creative Suite applications, adding metadata, using our personalized data management system to upload photos, and researching to add context and any additional information available. In addition, I assisted in creating a temporary exhibit for the Tunis Speedway, Waterloo, Iowa.

Perry, Iowa, United States

This internship solidified my desire to pursue a degree in public history. While at Dallas County Conservation's Forest Park Museum, I performed a wide array of tasks from maintenance and garden work to forming an exhibit and operating the museum for several weekends. For ease of organization, the following points summarize my activities:- Design, research, curate, install, and write a press release for an exhibit about local family bands from the 1890s through the 1950s including an interactive make-and-take instrument project for families.- Open and close the museum every other weekend which includes welcoming guests, fielding questions, and giving a few tours upon request.- Create activity worksheets for three age groups to use while visiting the Alton Schoolhouse. - Create an activity worksheet for visitors to use while in the Scale House.- Write a press release and a newsletter article about the new Buck Roses exhibit.- Write an article about three local cold cases explaining their history to go along with the cold case exhibit. - Clean and perform basic maintenance on eleven buildings (four of which were off-site) as well as assisting in the preservation of historic books and leather items.

West Des Moines, Iowa, United States

Though the West Des Moines Historical Society's Jordan House Museum had not yet returned to full operations following the pandemic closures, I was able to experience a behind-the-scenes view of how a historic house museum functions in comparison to other museum styles. In this role I took an inventory in each room of the house which required the use of a nomenclature book and online research to determine object's proper name, usage, maker's mark, potential causes of damage, etcetera. The information gained through the inventory was then added to the museum's PastPerfect system. I was also able to meet a few of the volunteer tour guides to see how they interpret the content and connect the history with their visitors – albeit smaller groups of masked visitors.

Panora, Iowa, United States

Though my time with the Guthrie County Historical Village was limited to once a week over the course of the summer, I was able to gain insight on how a village of historic buildings is operated in comparison to other types of historic museums. In addition to this, I performed maintenance work around the property which granted me a front row seat to each exhibit. Through this I was able to see how the curatorial team used the vast array of objects in their collection to tell the story of each building.

Bachelor'S Degree, Interactive Digital Studies, Public History Minor, 3.99 / 4.0 Cumulative Gpa, Summa Cum Laude

Activities and Societies: Panther Marching Band (digital team and uniform manager, May 2020- Dec 2021), Kappa Kappa Psi – Eta Pi.

Associate Of Arts - Aa, Liberal Arts, 3.96/4.00 Cumulative Gpa

Activities and Societies: Phi Theta Kappa honor society, DMACC honors program, D'Mc Tones jazz band, and choir.

High School Diploma

Activities and Societies: Marching band (4 years, clarinet section leader 2016/17), jazz band (3 years), show choir (3 years), treble.