Museum ‘Magic’ Fuels Career in Curation
When her family moved to Northern Virginia, Makayla Bowman ’26 spent weekends exploring the Smithsonian museums in nearby Washington, D.C. The quiet power of those spaces – even at the age of seven – stirred something inside her.
“After those magical museum visits,” she said, “I knew I didn’t just want to learn about history, I wanted to help tell it.”
Now a senior double majoring in anthropology and historic preservation, she’s learning to help others understand how the past plays into the present, while carving out her own future – a career in museum curation.
“I love getting hands-on with artifacts and telling their stories,” said Bowman, who tacked on a museum studies minor and internships at the Fredericksburg Area Museum and UMW’s Gari Melchers Home and Studio. “It’s about making history approachable, something everyone can see and understand.”
She’s worked on tours, exhibits and programming, plus a medieval burial site excavation in Spain – all while mentors like Associate Professor of Historic Preservation Cristina Turdean “push me to reach higher,” Bowman said.
An Honors student, vice president of Columns Academic Journal, president of the Humanities and Social Sciences Society, and an aide in UMW’s Archaeology Laboratory and Simpson Library Special Collections – Bowman hopes to lift underrepresented stories into the light and broaden public engagement.
“History doesn’t just live in the past. It lives in the people who preserve it, interpret it and share it,” she said. “That’s the work I enjoy doing, and thanks to my time at UMW, I know I’m ready.”
