Board of Directors

Tom Woodward, Bennington, VT, President
Lauren G. Meier, Concord, MA, Treasurer

Phyllis Andersen, Boston, MA
Akea Cader, Braintree, MA
Kristen Dahmann, Concord, MA
Arleyn A. Levee, Watertown, MA
Wendy Machmuller, Brookline, MA
Steven R. Pendery, Brookline, MA
Ian Scherling, Watertown, MA
Sam E. Valentine, Boston, MA
Emily Vance, Baltic, CT
Ann Whiteside, Dorchester, MA

Phyllis Andersen
Phyllis Andersen is a landscape historian and urban landscape specialist. She was the director of the Institute of Cultural Landscape Studies of the Arnold Arboretum. Earlier she coordinated the Arboretum’s cooperative agreement with the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation. She has worked on urban landscape issues for the Boston Parks Department, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management, and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. She taught at the Landscape Institute of the Boston Architectural College, a program previously situated at the Arnold Arboretum and earlier at the Radcliffe Institute. She also taught at the Yale College Seminar Program and Roxbury Community College. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters and is currently working on a book with a working title of “A Matter of Taste: The Public Pleasure Garden and Civic Life.”

Akea Cader
Akea Cader obtained her B.S. in Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Upon graduating, Akea has made it her mission to support environmental youth education and equitable access to green spaces. One of Akea’s first positions after graduation was acting as the youth education intern at Frederick Law Olmsted NHS where she led the Stewards of the Future youth program and assisted with the Good neighbors youth program for the 2021 and 2022 season. Akea still supports the historic site as a Youth education consultant currently.

Kristen Dahmann
Kristen has practiced both Landscape Architecture and Architecture and most recently graduated with a Masters in Historic Preservation from Boston University. She has a deep love for architectural history and the vernacular landscape.

Arleyn A. Levee
Arleyn A. Levee, Hon. ASLA is a landscape designer, historian and preservation consultant, specializing in the work of the Olmsted firm. After a lengthy practice in residential design, she now concentrates on research, writing and lecturing about Olmsted firm projects. She is the author of “An Enduring Legacy: Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. in the Nation’s Capital,” in Civic Art: A Centennial History of the US Commission of Fine Arts (2013) and The Blue Garden: Recapturing an Iconic Newport Landscape (2016, republished in 2019). She is a board member of NAOP and serves on various committees for Historic New England, The Cultural Landscape Foundation and the Citizen’s Advisory Committee for the Muddy River Restoration, the latter involved with overseeing the rehabilitation of this component of the iconic Emerald Necklace park network.

Wendy Machmuller
Wendy Machmuller has been a resident of Brookline’s Pill Hill Historic District for the past 12 years; she can often be seen walking her dog through Olmsted Park, or running through the woods or up the granite stairs, taking in but never for granted the close proximity to it in which she lives. With an interest in planning, environmental sustainability, and social inclusivity, Wendy has served on various Town committees, including the study of the potential redevelopment of parcels adjacent to the Emerald Necklace, transforming Brookline’s only “industrial island” into an “Emerald Island.” Wendy is an elected Town Meeting Member of Precinct 5 and President of the High Street Hill Association.

Nance McGovern
Nance McGovern is Associate for Digital Preservation Instruction and Practice at Global Archivist LLC. and the Director of the Digital Preservation Management (DPM) workshop series. She has been preserving digital content for almost 40 years. Her interests include sustainable digital preservation and radical collaboration for inclusive communities. She is a past president of the Society of American Archives (SAA) and has a PhD in digital preservation from University College London. Her first job as an archivist was at the Olmsted National Historic Site in the early 80s not long after the site was acquired by the NPS.

Lauren G. Meier
Lauren Meier, ASLA, is a landscape architect with a specialty in historic preservation and has worked in both public and private practice, including the restoration of the Fairsted landscape. She has published many articles on landscape preservation practice. Meier is co-author of the historic resource study, “The Olmsteds and the National Park Service” and is an editor of the Master List of Design Projects of the Olmsted Firm and the final two volumes of the Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Meier is currently teaching and studying botanical art through the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.

Steven R. Pendery
Steve Pendery served as archaeologist for the National Park Service Northeast Region and has personal familiarity with the buried resources at Fairsted. Archaeology brought to light exactly how challenging it was for the Olmsted firm just to keep their own backyard drained and dry! After Pendery received his PhD in anthropology from Harvard University Pendery he served as Boston’s City Archaeologist and later directed Archaeological Services at U Mass Amherst. He appreciates the critical value of the Olmsted archives as a key to understanding park archaeological preservation due to the firm’s careful documentation of landscapes before and after construction.

Ian Scherling
Ian Scherling, ASLA, is a landscape architect at Sasaki. His work considers themes of human-centered design, social justice, and critical regionalism. He has had the privilege of touching many projects by Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. and the Olmsted firm. Ian consistently speaks at conferences and he values mentoring the next generation of landscape architects, serving as instructor, lecturer, or critic at Northeastern, Boston Architectural College, Rhode Island School of Design, Roger Williams University, Kansas State University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Texas A&M University. Ian received a non-baccalaureate master of landscape architecture degree from Kansas State University in 2009.

Sam E. Valentine
Sam just joined the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA) where he conducts design review as Senior Landscape Architect. He recently completed a Fulbright research fellowship, focusing on group-constructed landscapes in marginalized communities in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. He holds degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Design and the University of Georgia. For a decade, Sam practiced with Richard Burck Associates, where he managed campus, streetscape, and public-realm park projects, including the renovation of the Westland Avenue Gateway in Boston’s Back Bay Fens, which reconciled contemporary community needs with the historic design intent of the Olmsted firm. Sam’s first job after graduating with his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture was at Fairsted, helping to implement the “Good Neighbors” education program.

Emily Vance
Emily Vance is a historic preservationist whose work has helped preserve cultural resources at the local, state, federal and international levels. She recently served as the National Register and Architectural Survey Coordinator for the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office. She has also worked as a preservationist and archaeologist in the National Parks including Yellowstone, Redwoods and Death Valley. Through the US/ICOMOS International Exchange Program, she engaged in preservation work abroad. She earned an MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Oregon and completed her undergraduate degree in Anthropology at the University of Mississippi.

Ann Whiteside
Ann is Librarian/Assistant Dean for Information Resources in the Frances Loeb Library at Harvard GSD. Her career has focused on expanding access to print and digital materials in close collaboration with scholars, digital library collection building, the use of technology to support teaching and research, and digital preservation issues for born digital design files. She is active in many professional organizations and committees that shape approaches to the changing needs and opportunities faced by research libraries, including the Art Libraries Society/North America, the Association of Architecture School Librarians, the Society of Architectural Historians, and the International Confederation of Architectural Museums.

Tom Woodward
Tom Woodward is a not-for-profit leader with 25 years of experience in higher education, fine art museums and with the National Park Service. Tom most recently served as the Chief Advancement Officer at the Clark Art Institute and the Director of Institutional Advancement for the Harvard Art Museums. Tom has also worked as an administrator, park ranger, and educator for the National Park Service, focusing on administrative and program management with an emphasis on long- and short-term planning, resource development and grants and agreement management. Assignments with NPS included the Olmsted, Longfellow and Kennedy National Historic Sites in the Boston area, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park in Woodstock, Vermont, the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation and the Tsongas Industrial History Center at Lowell National Historic Park.