Meet the Director

​Will Bellaimey grew up exploring museums on Saturdays in his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied Geography as well as Political Science at Middlebury College in Vermont and taught history in Boston and New York City before moving to Los Angeles to take the helm of the new Museum of Geography. In his free time he enjoys hiking in the San Gabriels, riding the Amtrak Surfliner and drinking fresh squeezed citrus juices.

Meet the ​Board of Trustees
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The LAMoG Board of Trustees is tasked with oversight of the director and staff of the Museum, ensuring that the work and exhibits stay true to the mission and pushing for continued growth and innovation.
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Abra Atwood

is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, studying groundwater and the breakdown of rocks and how they interact to shape the landscapes around us. She also works with remote sensing datasets to explore large scale geomorphic relationships and build cool maps. Before moving to Los Angeles for graduate school, she lived in Anchorage, Alaska where she worked as a professional baker and grew up in a small town in Vermont.  

Kristin Brisbois

is a Prep alumni (’11) who is a museum educator at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. She is also a PhD student at the Institute of Education, Department of Culture, Communication and Media at University College London (UCL). Her studies focus upon how learning is impacted in an art museum when visitors view art while utilizing interactive digital technologies. Her museum experience includes interning at Tate Britain while obtaining her MA in Curating the Art Museum at The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Her love of travel has led her to study in Spain, Switzerland, UK, and China while working in the art museums and galleries on three continents.

Sarah Cooper

​teaches 8th grade U.S. history and is Dean of Studies at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Canada, California. She is the author of Making History Mine: Meaningful Connections for Grades 5-9 (Stenhouse, 2009) and most recently of Creating Citizens: Teaching Civics and Current Events in the History Classroom, Grades 6-9 (Routledge, 2017). Sarah lives just outside Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.
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Carson Dietz Hartmann

currently works as a research analyst at the Preservation Green Lab in Seattle, Washington. He spends his days conducting GIS and statistical analysis to make maps and visualizations of older and historic buildings in American cities. Before working at the Trust, Carson lived in Portland, Oregon, and the West Bank, organizing and teaching among displaced and homeless populations. Born and raised in Seattle, Carson endured 4 Vermont winters to earn a degree in Geography, Arabic and French from Middlebury College

Nia Freshman

is a set-decorator and designer. Growing up the daughter of an avid movie buff father, Nia was nourished in childhood with such cinema classics as Orson Welles’s Citizen Kaneand David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. This, and her own youthful movie-making efforts, stirred an early hunger for Hollywood. After graduating with a concentration in production design from Columbia College Chicago in 2010, Nia moved from the blustering Midwest to sunny Los Angeles to peruse her film career. Nia’s first Hollywood job was as an art department production assistant on CBS’s Criminal Minds. She excelled at various other creative tasks, particularly floral designing for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Conan, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Experience on such major network programs landed her a set-decorating job on CBS’s Big Brother; where she has held a standing position for five seasons. Nia has been a set decorator for various other TV shows and commercials since 2012.

Max Kanter

is the CEO of Saturate, a company that is working to raise the bar for landcare in Southern California and beyond, leading the way toward a verdant and water resilient future. Through his work at Food Forward, Good Eggs and now at Saturate, Max has worked in communities from the Pasadena to Long Beach and all the way to Malibu. A native of Arizona, he proudly calls Los Angeles home after 6 years of exploring the city’s dynamic and stunning geography.
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Phil Freshman

grew up in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s. He attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, lived and worked in the Middle East and Africa, reported for newspapers, and taught English as a Second Language before becoming an art editor. He’s worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Minnesota Historical Society Press. He lives in Minneapolis. A freelancer since 1999, Phil has edited 125 books and dozens of exhibitions. He is president of the Association of Art Editors.

Meryl Eldridge

is a librarian at Flintridge Preparatory School. She has been at Prep for 13 years. Besides working in the library, she sews, dyes fabric with natural plants, fabricates jewelry and raises chickens. She lives at the border of the National Forest in Los Angeles County

Midge Kimble

is the Dean of Students at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Canada.  She went to Michigan State University and lived in Texas before moving to California.  She is married and has two daughters and one granddaughter.

 Josh Perlman

 was born in Los Angeles, attended Columbia University, and got his Masters Degree in International Affairs from Georgetown University. He is currently in the Head of the History Department at Flintridge Prep, where he has taught for six years. His hobbies include songwriting, meditation, learning foreign languages, dancing, and political activism.

Vanessa Walker-Oakes

is the head of Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada Flintridge, California. She has a B.A. in Fine Arts and History from Harvard College and teaches AP Art History. In addition to LAMoG, Vanessa serves on the Board of Directors of Inner-City Arts, an organization providing arts education to underserved youth in Los Angeles County. Her son, Elliot is a former staff member at the museum. 

Sienna Vaughn

is a former LAMoG tour guide from the 2018-2019 staff.  She is currently a freshman at Flintridge Prep and Historian Captain for the Flintridge Prep Speech and Debate Team! She loves to dance, watch Netflix, and play piano in her free time!