John McNiff, former park ranger and historic re-enactor, as Roger Williams.
McNiff was born and brought up in RI. He attended Rhode Island College and received his BA in History with a minor in Anthropology in 1979. He studied archaeology in England, in 1980 and then came back to the US to work as a commercial fisherman, in sales, and advertising. He has been an historical re-enactor since the mid-1970s. In 1996 John began working with the National Park Service and in 1997 was stationed as a Park Ranger at the Roger Williams National Memorial on
North Main Street in Providence, RI
C. Morgan Grefe, executive director of the Rhode Island Historical Society.
She has been at the Society for six and a half years. Much of this time she served as the Director of the Goff Center for Education and Public Programs, but in the summer of 2011 she took the helm of the RIHS.
Her work as a historian focuses on U.S. social, cultural and architectural history, with a special focus on public history and Rhode Island. Although not originally from Rhode Island, she
has made this her home for thirteen years and continues to be enchanted by the state and its history.
She holds a Ph.D. in American civilization from Brown University and a Bachelors and Masters from the University of Pennsylvania in American Civilization and Material Culture.
J. Stanley Lemons is emeritus professor of History at Rhode Island College and historian of the First Baptist Church in America.
An historian of American culture, Dr. Lemons’s scholarly interests and publications have ranged over the topics of women’s history, African-American history, popular
culture, American religion, social reform, and Rhode Island history. Among his half dozen books is FIRST: The First Baptist Church in America. The American Association of State and Local History has twice honored him with their highest award.
Andrew Grover, RI Brick Artist
I make LEGO models of beautiful buildings in Rhode Island! Check out my blog to see what I’ve been up to lately, my projects page to see what I’ve made in the past, and my ‘Custom Kits’ page to get a set of one of these beautiful buildings!
Visit my ‘custom kit’ page to get yourself a RI Landmark set!
Lorén M. Spears is an enrolled Narragansett Tribal Nation citizen and Executive Director of Tomaquag Museum
Ms Spears holds a master’s in education and received a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa in 2017, from the University of Rhode Island and Doctor of Education, Honoris Causa from Roger Williams University in 2021. She is an author, artist and shares her cultural knowledge with the public through museum programs. Under her leadership Tomaquag Museum received the Institute of Museums and Library Service’s National Medal in 2016 and she has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors.
Sarah Jane Lapp connects humans to one another. Over the last twenty-five years she has made images for stage, page, and screen by producing essay-films, hand-drawn animations, short plays, jigsaw puzzles, music videos, telematic productions, anti-fascist greeting cards, and photovoltaic solar installations.
She earned a B.A at Brown University before becoming a Fulbright Scholar at Fakulta Academie Muzickych Umeni in Prague. She apprenticed at Studio Bratri v Triku and completed her MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago. The jigsaw puzzles SJL designs from her paintings bring her into worlds dedicated to healing and community-building -libraries, universities, hospitals, even a few corporations. She uses these puzzles inside the app Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles and during live puzzle assembly events, i.e. the large public art project, “Puzzical Chairs & Pie with Live Music.”
Dr. Charlotte Carrington-Farmer is a Professor of History, and she specializes in early American History.
She received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2010, and she has a keen research interest in dissent in seventeenth-century New England. Her book, Roger Williams & His World, (2025), sets Roger Williams in his wider Atlantic world context. She has published book chapters on two seventeenth-century dissenters, see: “Thomas Morton” in: Atlantic Lives: Biographies that Cross the Ocean (Leiden and Boson: Brill, 2014) and “Roger Williams and the Architecture of Religious Liberty,” in Law and Religion and the Liberal State (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2020.) Building on her interest in Roger Williams, she has published an article on his wife, Mary Williams, entitled: “More than Roger’s Wife: Mary Williams and the Founding of Providence.” The New England Quarterly, vol. 97, no. 3, Sept. 2024: 308-44.
Rev. Janet M. Cooper Nelson shepherded the Brown community through triumphs, tensions, celebrations and sorrow as University chaplain and director of the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life for more than three decades.
An ever-present fixture on campus, her poetic and thoughtful prayers were a cornerstone of University celebrations like Opening Convocation, the annual service of Lessons and Carols, Commencement and Reunion Weekend, and the Baccalaureate (her favorite), among many others.
A source of wisdom and guidance, Cooper Nelson has provided pastoral care to generations of faculty, staff and students — many of whom stay in touch with her long after they’ve graduated. Rev. Cooper Nelson retired at the end of the 2024-25 academic year. She will hold tight to these countless connections.
