Brandie Benton, Ph.D. is the SPA Coordinator for National Council for the Social Studies and Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction with Virtual Arkansas. Dr. Benton has worked as an educator for almost twenty-five years. After teaching middle school social studies for several years, Dr. Benton accepted a position as a professor at a small liberal arts university, where she taught Special Methods in Social Studies, and several other teacher preparation courses. After becoming involved with program review and the NCATE and CAEP accreditation processes, she accepted the position of Specialty Professional Association Coordinator for the National Council for the Social Studies, which allows her to support social studies teacher preparation programs across the United States and beyond. She co-chaired the committee that revised the NCSS 2017 Teacher Preparation Standards. She also serves as Deputy Superintendent of Virtual Arkansas, a State Virtual School, charged with providing supplemental online learning opportunities to students across the state. Additionally, she is a proponent of digital learning and has served in a number of support and advisory roles for advancing technology literacy in Arkansas.

Chip Brady is the co-founder & CEO of The DBQ Project. He grew up in Evanston, Illinois, graduated from Brown University, and traded options at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. After completing a History masters program at Northwestern University in 1990, he taught in the History and Social Science Department at his alma mater, Evanston Township High School for 18 years. Chip was Co-Project Director for Evanston’s Teaching American History Grant and was a finalist for the Those Who Excel Teacher of the Year Award in Illinois.

Tab Broyles is the Director of Teacher Development with the Bob and Marion Wilson Teacher Institute of Colonial Williamsburg. Tab was one of the founders of the Teacher Institute in 1990 and over the past 34 years has welcomed over 30,000 teachers to the program. Tab attended The College of William and Mary and received a BA in Government with a minor in Spanish and an M.A. in Education.

Heather Nice is the Executive Director of Strategic Projects and Partnerships at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and holds an M.S. in Information Science with concentrations in Archival Outreach and Museum Studies from the University of Texas and a B.A. in Historical Studies and Literary Studies with a minor in Education from the University of Texas at Dallas. Her academic and professional interests lie in the intersections between archives and museums, education, and history as she seeks to understand best practices for the implementation of historical disciplinary methods and the effective pedagogical use of sources in K-12 learning environments. Heather recently published a chapter, “Making the Invisible Visible: Demystifying Sources and Disciplinary Practice,” in the Educator’s Handbook for Teaching With Primary Sources (Waring, 2023).

Lee Ann Potter directs Professional Learning and Outreach Initiatives at the Library of Congress. She leads a talented team committed to informing, inspiring, and engaging educators, librarians, early researchers, and literacy champions, by developing programs and materials largely based on primary sources. She has been a frequent contributor to Social Education for more than 25 years and serves as the “Sources and Strategies” feature editor.

Breanne Robertson, Ph.D. is an Education Specialist with the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC. She oversees in-gallery learning for students, teachers, and families, and serves as editor to the “Teaching with Documents” feature in Social Education. Prior to joining the Archives, she worked as a military historian with the U.S. Marine Corps and taught art history and American studies at the undergraduate level. Breanne holds an MA in art history from the University of Texas and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Maryland.