Amanda (Burke) Wesselmann
Amanda (Burke) Wesselmann
Illinois State University alumna Amanda (Burke) Wesselmann ’01, M.S. ’04, is currently the associate director of the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum in Crawfordsville, Ind. In October, her museum received the 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service presented by First Lady Laura Bush at a White House ceremony.
The medal is the nation’s highest honor for museums and libraries. Each year, the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), in coordination with the White House, presents the National Medal to five museums and five libraries that have helped make their communities better places to live. Each winning institution also receives a $10,000 award.
Wesselmann received her B.S. in anthropology and her M.S. in historical archaeology. Professor James Skibo was chair of her thesis committee, and she recently told him that her current position in the museum “is my dream job and the reason that I got the master’s in historical archaeology.”
She is married to alumnus Eric Wesselmann who has his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from Illinois State. He is currently a graduate student at Purdue University working on a Ph.D. in social psychology, but he continues to collaborate with his ISU advisors, professors John Pryor and Glenn Reeder.
Amanda and Eric met at ISU in 2001, married in 2005, and their son, Timothy Jude, was born in 2007.
