Dr. Amy Foster

Lead Historian

Amy Foster is a historian of technology and gender. Her book, Integrating Women into the Astronaut Corps: Politics and Logistics at NASA, 1972-2004, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2011. Her research interests include the U.S. space program, gender and the space program, gender issues in engineering, aviation history, history of technology, and the history of medicine. She has been the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellow at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum and held a fellowship sponsored jointly by NASA and the American Historical Association.

Dr. Robert Cassanello

Robert Cassanello is an associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida. He is a social historian interested in digital public history. His book To Render Invisible: Jim Crow and Public Life in New South Jacksonville won the 2014 Harry Moore Award by the Florida Historical Society. His other books include, Migration and the Transformation of the Southern Workplace since 1945 with Colin J. Davis and Florida's Working-Class Past: Current Perspectives on Labor, Race, and Gender from Spanish Florida to the New Immigration with Melanie Shell-Weiss.

He is a publicly engaged scholar who has curated exhibits such as The Long History of the Civil Rights Movement in Florida and From Kin to Kant: Turpentine Culture in Central Florida. He has also produced numerous media projects such as the films, The Committee and Filthy Dreamers with Dr. Lisa Mills. The films have screened at numerous state, national, and international film festivals and won several awards. Additionally, he produces the podcasts RICHES of Central Florida and A History of Central Florida Podcast. Both won the Dunn Internet Broadcasting Award with the Florida Historical Society. Dr. Cassanello was a featured voice on the weekly public radio program, Florida Frontiers, produced by the Florida Historical Society.

Dr. Cassanello's many public history projects have involved collaboration with over 25 museums, archives, and historical societies across the state of Florida including the University of Florida’s Natural History Museum, Florida Department of State: Division of Historical Resources, Orange County Regional History Center, the Jones High School Museum, and the Florida Historical Society.