{"id":98,"date":"2025-08-20T08:49:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T12:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/matter\/?page_id=98"},"modified":"2026-04-29T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:24:50","slug":"makayla-bowman","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/matter\/makayla-bowman\/","title":{"rendered":"Makayla Bowman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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make it matter<\/div>

Makayla Bowman ’26<\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
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Museum ‘Magic’ Fuels Career in Curation<\/h2>

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.<\/p>

“After those magical museum visits,” she said, “I knew I didn’t just want to learn about history, I wanted to help tell it.”<\/p>

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.<\/p>

“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.”<\/p>

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.<\/p>

An Honors student, vice president of Columns Academic Journal<\/em>, 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.<\/p>

“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.”<\/p>

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