On This Land Online: Meet the Educators

Gail Coughlin

Gail Coughlin holds an MA in history from UMass Amherst. Her Master's thesis, "Our Souls Are Already Cared For: Indigenous Reactions to Religious Colonialism in Seventeenth-Century New England, New France, and New Mexico," examines the lives of Natick residents from the founding of the town to the end of King Philip's War. Coughlin recently contributed to two episodes of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture's "Ben Franklin's World" podcast. She volunteers with the Dedham Historical Society and Museum and the Natick Historical Society.

Terri Evans

Terri Evans serves on Natick’s planning board and the board of the Natick Historical Society, through which she gives walking tours of South Natick. She shares stories of Boston’s architectural history as a guide with Boston By Foot, and is a long-standing volunteer with the Friends of the Morse Institute Library. She has contributed to numerous NHS research projects, including extensive research to develop interpretive signs for the Cochituate Rail Trail Project in Natick.

Rebecca Sgouros

Rebecca Sgouros is an environmental archaeologist and educator with twelve years of field and lab experience focusing on projects in the Rocky Mountains. She has designed and taught place-based archaeology programs in Massachusetts and Wyoming. Current projects include investigating life and food choices at high altitudes, paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Tetons, ice-patch archaeology survey along the Continental Divide, and an ancient food & diet study using biomolecular and experimental archaeology techniques. She co-directs a site at the base of the Tetons in South East Idaho that brings public volunteers and school children out to participate in excavation and analysis. Rebecca has worked for several nonprofits and museums in both Massachusetts and Wyoming designing and teaching place-based archaeology programs in hopes of creating environmental and cultural heritage stewards in her local communities.

Rachel Speyer Besancon

Rachel Speyer Besancon works as the Programs Coordinator at the Natick Historical Society and was the primary producer for On This Land Online. Much of her research at Natick has focused on 17th and 18th century Massachusett and Nipmuc history in Natick. Before joining the NHS in 2019, Rachel graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College where she studied political science and astronomy. She is currently studying at Boston College where she is pursuing a PhD in history, focused on post-1945 West Germany with a focus on reconstruction, denazification, and generational memory of World War II.

On This Land Online is made possible by a grant from Mass Humanities, which provided funding through the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC). The Natick Historical Society would also like to thank Middlesex Savings Bank for its sponsorship and the generous private donors whose contributions brought this program to life.