The Public History Project is an interdisciplinary research consortium based within the estuarial region that is home to New York and Newark. We are historians, ecologists, cartographers, artists, educators, culture bearers and linguists partnering to challenge the established colonial narratives of this region’s history and to transform how we tell our stories, while in the process, caring for our land and waters.
Our Team
Jack Tchen / Founding Director
Jack (John Kuo Wei) Tchen is a historian, curator, and writer devoted to anti-racist, anti-colonialist democratic participatory storytelling, scholarship, and opening up archives, museums, organizations, and classroom spaces to the stories and realities of those excluded and deemed “unfit” in master narratives. Professor Tchen has been honored to be the Inaugural Clement A Price Chair of Public History & Humanities at Rutgers University – Newark and Director of the Clement Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture & the Modern Experience, since Fall 2018…
Kerry Hardy / Lead Researcher & Cartographer
Kerry Hardy is a researcher, eco-historian, and author who studies the human ecology of pre-Contact Native Americans, primarily through geographic and linguistic analysis. He is the Lead Researcher and Cartographer at the Public History Project, the Stewardship Coordinator at the Vinalhaven Land Trust, and author of “Notes on a Lost Flute: A Field Guide to the Wabanaki” that delves into the Native American foodways, languages, place names and ecologies of Maine in 2009…
Amir Sheikh / Spatial Research Manager
Amir Sheikh is a transdisciplinary urban environmental researcher, curator, and collaboration builder. He utilizes the tools of anthropology, geography, environmental science, historical inquiry, and design-based collaborations to examine critical questions about our spatial relationships to landscapes and their deeply intertwined narratives of place to better inform a just shared future.
Community Partners
Chief Vincent Mann
Chief Mann is the Turtle Clan Chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, which encompasses Passaic County NJ, Warwick, and surrounding areas in New York. Chief Mann has held the title of Turtle Clan Chief for approximately twelve years. For the past five years, he has worked with the NYU Environmental Studies department. In that time, he participated in the construction and implementation of a community health survey focused on identifying and addressing health concerns within his community. To honor Chief Mann’s efforts to shed light on his community’s efforts to fight back after the Ford toxic dumping, he was awarded the Russ Berry Foundations highest award of Unsung Hero…
Michaeline Picaro Mann
Michaeline Picaro Mann is a member of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation Turtle Clan. She is a knowledge bearer and advocates for the Turtle Clan. With Chief Vincent Mann, Picaro Mann has been at the forefront of the Ramapough’s environmental justice organizing efforts. She has worked with NYU Environmental Studies, contributing to their shared projects, her nursing expertise, research skills, and perspective on traditional healing…
Councillor Gordon Peters
Gordon Peters is a member of the Turtle Clan and is (Lunaapeew) Lenape from the Eelünaapéewi Lahkéewiit (Delaware Nation). He currently serves as a Councillor for Lenape Community Eelunapeewi Lahkawiit. Councillor Peters has worked with First Nations, both in a political and non-political capacity, for over four decades applying his organizing knowledge to promote and develop indigenous sovereignty. He formerly held the position of Deputy Grand Chief, an elected position within the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians. Previously, Councillor Peters served as Ontario Regional Chief of Assembly of First Nations for 12 years and acted as head of the AIAI for 4 years. He is an author, educator, and is often invited to speak on First Nations and community economic and cultural development issues…
Collaborators and Contributors
Alex Peabody, Alexandre Girardeau, Audra Simpson, Brent Stonefish, Claudia Sepulveda, Conor Quinn, Doris Brossard, Eric Sanderson, Frances Pollitt Sarver, George Stonefish, Jessica Hernandez, Kerri Schlottman, Kim Fisher, Leora Fuller, Lize Mogel, Mabel Wilson, Mehreen Mian, Mora McLean, Norris Branham, Sam Hege
The Public History Project is generously supported by the Ford Foundation and is grateful for our close collaboration with the Clement Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience, Rutgers University – Newark.
