Elisabeth Sommer
Education Curator, El Paso Museum of Art, PhD University of Virginia, SommerEX@elpasotexas.gov
Elisabeth Sommer holds a PhD in European History from the University of Virginia. She has taught at the university level at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Wake Forest University in North Carolina, and the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. Dr. Sommer’s area of expertise is the cultural, religious, and social history of Early Modern Europe, with a focus on the Unity of the Brethren, known as the Moravian Brethren in America. She has published a book, Serving Two Masters: Moravian Brethren in Germany and North Carolina 1727-1801 (University Press of Kentucky), and several articles including one in Journal of the History of Ideas and one in the edited volume Pious Pursuits: German Moravians in the Atlantic World (Berghahn Books). Her professional museum credits include serving as Director of Research and Interpretation for the Staten Island Historical Society/Historic Richmondtown, and as Manager of Education and Interpretation for Roanoke Island Festival Park, a North Carolina State Historic Site that interprets the first English voyages to North America in the 1580s. She also edited the Summer 2011 volume of the Journal of Museum Education.