Bio:

Madyson is a first year MA student in the Public History program with a focus on early American History and Museum Management. She was born and raised in New Hampshire and graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Anthropology concentrating in Archaeology and modified with Art History, and a minor in History.  
 
Her research is broadly focused on the earliest stages of the colonial period in the Americas, specifically the interactions between Native peoples and European colonists. In particular, she seeks to use material culture to explore how the ways in which Indigenous and European cultures and behaviors were altered by contact, with a special interest in foodways, agriculture, and religion. With an added focus in museum management, she seeks to reshape how Indigenous and early colonial history is thought about and presented in museum spaces. 
 
In her undergraduate studies, Madyson conducted archival and archaeological research projects in a number of areas of colonial history. In the summer of her junior year, she completed a summer internship with the Archaeology Collections Division of the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission and volunteered at the Lacey Museum of History. Her senior year, she worked at the Dartmouth College Hood Museum of Art as a Curational Intern. In this role, she conducted research in the museum's American Art Collection and curated and designed her own exhibit titled Sports Culture: Gender, Belonging, and Nationhood. As a female Division 1 athlete on Dartmouth's track and field team, Madyson used this exhibit space to explore the ways in which individual and collective identities are invented and intertwined through athletics. The exhibit examined works spanning from the 19th through 21st centuries and covered topics of cultural pride, the imposition of state power, sexual identity, and gender expectations. Madyson presented her exhibit in a public gallery talk and was lucky enough to privately share selected pieces to Dartmouth's 2024 Commencement speaker, tennis legend Roger Federer.