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Charles Sidney Leary (often referred to as Sid Leary) was born in England and moved overseas in 1907, eventually settling in Nakusp, British Columbia. He began working in the lumber industry and eventually came to own a mill. He served as an officer in the first World War, eventually rising to the rank of Captain. He was posted to Cyprus for timber operations in 1917 and it was there that he began to collect ancient artifacts. On returning to Canada, Leary continued to work in the timber industry. He later served as an MLA in the British Columbia Legislature, including two years as the Minister of Public Works. His collection of antiquities acquired in Cyprus was eventually shipped to Canada. After his death in 1950, his family donated his collection to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

Daisy May Sewid-Smith (née Sewid) was born in Alert Bay, BC, on November 28, 1938, daughter of Chief James Sewid and Flora Violet Alfred, and granddaughter of Agnes Alfred. After graduating school, she took a secretarial course at Vancouver College and worked for the Indian Affairs Branch in Alert Bay. During her time in Alert Bay, she published several articles and books about the prosecution of potlatches and the confiscation and return of artifacts by the Canadian government.
Daisy Sewid-Smith is one of the leading linguistic experts in the Kwakwakka’wakw community, teaching the language and developing a method to transcribe it. She wrote a grammar book for the Kwak’wala language. She also translated some of Franz Boas’ texts in the context of land claim issues and contributed to the UN convention on the rights of the child. Sewid-Smith works in the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria and was a member of the Advisory Council for the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society.
In the late 1970s, her grandmother, Agnes Alfred, introduced her to Martine J. de Widerspach-Thor (later Martine J. Reid) with whom she recorded and translated her grandmother’s memoirs between 1979 and 1985. From then until the late 1990s, they put a hold in their project for personal and work-related reasons. In the late 1990s, they resumed their work, which lead to the publication of the book Paddling to Where I Stand in 2004.

Agnes Alfred (née Agnes Bertha Joe and also known as Axu, Axuw or Axuwaw) was a noble Qwiqwasutinuxw woman from the Kwakwakawakw Nation. She was known in her community as one of the last great storytellers in the classic oral tradition.

Ann is a retired, settler information professional who has a Master’s degree from UBC in Anthropology (1985) and an MLIS from the UBC School of Information (2008). From 2010-2018, Ann oversaw the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library & Archives (AHHLA) at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) and managed digital projects and services for MOA. The Oral History & Language Lab is part of AHHLA and has led MOA’s involvement with the Indigitization Program. Being part of the Indigitization Program Steering Committee was a highlight of Ann's career, affording her the opportunity to work with and for Indigenous communities.

David Pokotylo is an anthropological archaeologist whose research and teaching expertise has focused on the archaeology of hunter-gatherer-foragers, lithic technology, public archaeology, archaeological heritage management, and the use of quantitative methods in archaeology. His focus in archaeology of hunter-gatherer-foragers and lithic technology have allowed him to participate in a range of fieldwork projects in northwestern Canada (British Columbia, Northwest Territories), northern China, and Kenya. He is an Associate Professor Emeritus in UBC's Department of Anthropology.

Born at Tsax̱is (Fort Rupert), Charles James Nowell was the first full blooded Kwakwaka'wakw to act as an interpreter and collector for outsiders. He was married to the daughter of Chief Lageuse of the 'Namgis First Nation. Between 1899 and his death in 1924, Nowell was the assistant to Charles F. Newcombe, an Englishman who supplied ethnographic objects to the Field Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the Peabody Museum at Harvard and others. Nowell and Bob Harris, also from Tsaxis, were part of the Kwakiutl and Nootka display at the 1904 St. Louis Universal Exposition.

Ronnie Evelyn Tessler was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1944 and has resided in Vancouver, B.C. since 1968. She attended the University of Manitoba, the Manitoba Institute of Technology, the Emily Carr College of Art and Design, the University of Victoria, and Simon Fraser University, where she received a Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies in 2006. Tessler became a documentary photographer in 1973, working on various photographic projects and exhibiting her work in Canada and the United States until 1990. Her artwork resides in a number of public collections, including the National Archives of Canada, the Canada Council Art Bank, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography. In 1990, Tessler became the first executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, and was instrumental in its development into a fully-staffed facility with a museum, archives, and education and resource centre. Since 1996, she has worked as an independent project consultant and editor for cultural arts groups in B.C.

Beatrice ‘Beatty’ Pilon worked in Chengtu, Szechwan, China in the late 1940s and made a month-long trip into Tibet by horseback in 1948. Some objects Pilon purchased while in Tibet were later donated to the Museum of Anthropology.

Michael McLean Ames was born in Vancouver in 1933. He graduated from UBC with a B.A. in Anthropology in 1956, and from Harvard University with a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology in 1961. Ames also studied at the University of Michigan, University of London, and the University of Chicago between 1957 and 1962. He taught at McMaster University from 1962 to 1964, and in 1964 he began working at the University of British Columbia (UBC) as an assistant professor, followed by an associate professorship in 1966 and full professorship in 1970. In 1974 he became Director of the UBC Museum of Anthropology (MOA). From 1974 to 1976 Ames was president of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute which was established in 1968 with funding from the Indian Government to promote Indian studies in Canada. Ames retired from MOA in 1997, and received professor emeritus status in 1998. He remained involved with the Anthropology department at UBC, co-teaching undergraduate courses such as Humanities 101 on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, chairing the Dean of Arts First Nations Language Programme advisory committee, and helping to institute the Musqueam 101 seminar at Musqueam. In July 2002, Ames returned to MOA as Acting Director until 2004. Michael Ames passed away in February, 2006.

Ames received the Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1979, and a Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology in 1996. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998. Ames also received the UBC Alumni Award of Distinction in 2005.

Ames published an extensive number of articles and books on a range of subjects including South Asian anthropology, First Nations issues, and museology.

Rita Steeds (nee Pollock) was born in 1918 in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. She attended business college in Regina and worked in the field of accounting between 1938 and 1955. In 1943, she married James Steeds and moved to Ottawa. She completed training in 1962 to become a medical records librarian. Between 1962 and 1964, she worked as a medical records librarian at the Ottawa Civic Hospital and the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital (London, England). She functioned as the Director of the Medical Records Department of Kingston General Hospital in Kingston, Ontario between 1964 and 1969. From 1969 to 1973, she was Director of the Medical Records Department and the Head of Medical Records Librarian Training at Severance Hospital in Seoul, South Korea. After completing this appointment, she served as a consultant at Silliman University Medical Centre at Dumguetl, Island of Negros, in the Philippines between 1973 and 1976. Prior to her retirement in 1980, Steeds worked as the Head of Medical Records at Wrinch Memorial Hospital, Hazelton, B.C. Rita Steeds is the author of several publications related to medical records in addition to her autobiography, Woman Not Alone.

Jean Telfer graduated from U.B.C. in 1924, and subsequently trained as a teacher. Telfer worked in this role from 1931 to 1934 at the Morley Residential School in Alberta. In the late 1930s Telfer also worked at the Alberni Residential School in British Columbia.

William (Bill) McLennan was born in Vancouver on October 4, 1948. He received a degree in Arts and Merchandising from Vancouver City College and upon graduation, worked for the City of Vancouver, the MacMillan Planetarium, and Vancouver Centennial Museum, all in the area of exhibit and graphic design. In 1975, McLennan began to work at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) on a contract to photograph the presentation of the visible storage system. In 1976, he became a permanent staff member at the Museum.

His initial responsibilities included exhibit design, graphic design, photography, teaching, and research. In these capacities McLennan held the responsibility of photographing collections at various stages, as well as photographing events and the physical building and exhibition spaces. Being a designer entailed working with curators and artists on exhibits, designing labels, brochures and memorabilia sold in the gift shop. His teaching responsibilities included working with students who interned under his supervision during the school year, giving classes on photography and design to students taking museum studies courses and giving lectures of Northwest Coast painting and photography. In 1993 he began to curate exhibits, McLennan’s first exhibit as curator was The Transforming Image after his discovery through extensive research that infrared film could reveal Northwest coast paintings that had disappeared under the patina of age. In 2001 he officially became a curator/project manager in addition to continuing work in the graphic design department. In addition to these duties, McLennan performed contract work for various museums.

In 1979, McLennan won the Certificate of Design Excellence for exhibit design for Print Magazine Casebooks. In 1983, he received a Canada Council Grant, followed by a BC Heritage grant in 1984 and 85, to research the possibilities of using infrared film to reveal Northwest Coast paintings that had faded with time. This research was interrupted in 1986 when McLennan took a one-year leave of absence from the Museum to work for Expo ’86 as a member of the exhibits team. In 1987, he received a planning and development grant from the Museums Assistance Program in order to develop his previous research on infrared painted images into an exhibit and book. This exhibit came to fruition in 1993 and was called ‘The Transforming Image’ from which a book was published by the same name which won the Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Canadian Museums Association in 2001. He also received a Certificate of Merit from the British Columbia Historical Federation for this book.

McLennan was also the recipient of the President’s Service Award for Excellence from the University of British Columbia in 1995 and the British Columbia Museums Associations Award of Merit for “The Respect to Bill Reid Pole” in 2002.

In 2010, McLennan curated an exhibit displaying the works of Charles and Isabella Edenshaw titled ‘Signed Without Signature: Works by Charles and Isabella Edenshaw’. This exhibit used 3D imaging technology to show the patterns on 3D objects in a flat undistorted perspective.

McLennan retired from MOA on October 31, 2013.

Marjorie Myers Halpin was born on February 11, 1937 in Tampa, Florida. She received both her Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Anthropology from George Washington University in 1962 and 1965 respectively. Between 1963 and 1968, Halpin was employed as a docent and an instructor in anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. During this time, she was also a part-time lecturer at George Washington University. Halpin’s involvement as teacher and scholar at the University of British Columbia began in 1968 when she was hired as a sessional lecturer in the Anthropology Department. Her duties evolved to include part-time curating at the Museum of Anthropology at U.B.C. She received her Ph.D. from U.B.C. in 1973 and was hired for the position of Assistant Professor and Curator in the same year. Halpin was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and Curator at U.B.C. in 1981 and remained in this position until the time of her death in 2000. She was also Acting Director of the Museum from 1983 to 1984.

As a professor in U.B.C.’s Anthropology Department, Halpin taught both lower and higher level anthropology courses. She also supervised the work of many Master’s and Ph.D.-level students and served as Chair and University Examiner for numerous Ph.D. students. As part of U.B.C.’s faculty, Halpin served on various committees including the Department Equity Committee, the Graduate Studies Committee and Green College’s Membership Committee. As scholar and writer, Halpin’s main interests were in Coast Tsimshian and Gitksan ethnology, museum anthropology, and the anthropology of art and ritual, which led her to produce many articles and essays on native art and culture. In addition, Halpin also gave presentations and public lectures at national and international conferences. She wrote two books, Totem Poles: An Illustrated Guide and Jack Shadbolt and the Coastal Indian Image, both of which were published as part of the Museum of Anthropology’s Museum Note Series. Halpin also edited and reviewed many publications within the anthropological field and contributed chapters to Canadian Encyclopedia, The Handbook of North American Indians and Consciousness and Inquiry, among many other publications. Her scholarly interests have also led to her involvement with electronic publications on Northwest Coast art, namely with CD-Roms and websites.

Halpin was an active member of numerous societies such as the Canadian Ethnology Society, the Canadian Museums Association and the Native Studies Art Association of Canada. She was also a member of the Tri-Council (MRC, SSHRC, NRC) Committee on Collections Documentation (2000), Chair of the Totem Pole Advisory Committee for the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation (1983-84) and Chair of the Committee on Museum Ethics for the Canadian Ethnology Society (1974-75). In addition to her duties as teacher, scholar and anthropologist, Halpin also took on the role of consultant for numerous private projects. Marjorie Halpin passed away in White Rock in 2000.

The 14th Dalai Lama, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk who is considered to be the first Dalai Lama to become a global figure, largely for his advocacy of Buddhism and of the rights of the people of Tibet. Despite his fame, he dispensed with much of the pomp surrounding his office, describing himself as a “simple Buddhist monk.” He was born Lhamo Dhondup in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. Born to a peasant family, His Holiness was recognized at the age of two. In accordance with Tibetan tradition, as the reincarnation of his predecessor the 13th Dalai Lama, His Holiness is an incarnation of Avalokiteshvar, the Buddha of Compassion.

Darrin Morrison was born on April 19, 1965 in Toronto, Ontario. From 1984 – 88 he attended the Ontario College of Art and Design. From 1991 – 1994 he was enrolled at the University of British Columbia (UBC), attending classes in Museum Studies, Conservation, and Chemistry. During the time Darrin Morrison was enrolled at UBC, he worked as a Museum Consultant, creating Emergency Contingency Plans for several local museums

From 1991 to 2005, he was employed at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at UBC. He was originally employed as a Preventive Conservation Specialist (1991-93) and moved into the position of Project Manager in the area of Preventive Conservation and Design, before his departure. Morrison’s tasks included designing museum exhibitions and displays as well as planning and implementing preventive conservation measures for the collections. He also taught and supervised students in classes such as preventive conservation, exhibition design, museum principles and methods. Besides teaching and working at MOA, Morrison also devoted time to instructing at cultural centres and small museums.

Darrin worked as the Administrator/Curator at the West Vancouver Art Museum from 2005 until 2020. He passed away in 2023.

Nuno Porto is originally from Portugal. He was trained has a social anthropologist. He did long term fieldwork in Central Portugal in the early 1990s, studying the relationships between literacy skills acquisition and gendered cultural knowledges. The coexistence of literate and oral rationalities in rural Portugal fueled interests in visual culture and on how religious experience is mediated by visual and material culture. The universe of visual theory and material culture studies was to become the center of his subsequent work related to museums. His PhD dissertation explored the articulation of colonialism, science, and museum culture, and how these merged in the co-development of the Dundo Museum in Northeast of Angola and of its proprietor, the Diamonds Company of Angola. This dissertation received the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation award for the Social and Human Sciences Thesis and was published by the same foundation in 2009.

Between 2006 and 2012 he integrated the Commission for the Re-opening of the Dundo Museum, led by the Ministry of Culture of Angola that successfully concluded its works in 2012. During this period he also led a team that developed and implemented the website on the archival materials of the Diamonds Company of Angola held at the University of Coimbra, www.diamangdigital.net. He was also a member of the research team for the project ‘Bearing Waters’ led by Lisbon sculptor Virginia Fróis, on the renewal of traditional Cape Verdean women ceramics.

Between 1991 and 2011 he taught at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, on subjects related to theory in social anthropology, material culture, critical museology, visual culture, photography and African studies. His work has been published in four different languages in eight different countries. He coordinated the Graduate Program in Social and Cultural Anthropology between 2006 and 2011, and also taught in the Graduate Program on Design and Multimedia. He acted as director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Coimbra between 2002 and 2006, where his team developed a series of temporary exhibitions based on the notion of ethnographic installation.

In 2013 he was Invited Professor at the Post Graduate Program in Social Memory at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO, in Brazil.

Porto currently serves as curator for Africa and South America at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Museum of Anthropology. He has been at UBC since 2012.

James Herbert (Herb) Watson was born 5 December 1934 in Ontario. He studied Science at Waterloo College and Fine Arts at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto. In 1960, he spent one year at the Kokoschka International Academy of Vision in Salzburg, Austria.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Herb Watson worked as an exhibition designer in a number of museum environments: the Vancouver Maritime Museum and Vancouver City Museum, 1966; the Vancouver Centennial Museum, 1969; the Maritime and City Museums, 1970-1977. In 1977, he took a one year visiting appointment at the Museum Of Anthropology (hereafter MOA). In 1978, he became Exhibit Designer at MOA.

While at MOA, Herb Watson designed over sixty exhibitions, ten of which traveled across Canada and many of which involved studen
t trainees. He regularly taught exhibit design to studen ts in a UBC introductory museum course and supervised the design and installation of annual studen t exhibitions. He was frequently invited to give lectures and workshops at other universities and museum associations.

From 1985-90, Herb Watson managed a contract to research design and install the South Pacific Pavilion at Expo '86. His role included representing eight South Seas nations and travelling to the South Pacific to acquire artifacts. Between 1988 and 1990, Herb Watson designed the west wing extension of MOA that would house the Koerner Ceramics Collection. Herb Watson retired from MOA 28 February 28 1991.

Margaret Stott served as the Curator of Ethnology and Education at the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology from 1979-1990. Stott's duties included public programs, education, and curator activities. Stott also gave teacher and museum workshops as well as teaching anthropology classes at the University of British Columbia. Margaret Stott obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1966. In 1969, Stott received her Master in Anthropology at McGill University. From 1969 to 1972, she served as archivist at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa and from 1973 to 1975, she worked as the Anthropology Exhibits Coordinator for the Museum of Man. From 1979 to 1990, Stott served as the Curator of Ethnology at UBC's Museum of Anthropology. Meanwhile in 1982, Stott obtained her PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of London. In 1990, Margaret Stott completed the Foundation Programme in Tourism Management at Simon Fraser University. From 1979 onwards, Stott also worked as a museum consultant. Major exhibitions curated or coordinated by Margaret Stott include: "'Ksan: Breath of Our Grandfathers", a travelling exhibition of the National Museum of Man 91972-1973); "Ontario Prehistory", a travelling exhibition of the National Museum of Man (1973); "Athapaskan Peoples: Strangers of the North", an exhibition prepared by the National Museum of Man and the Royal Scottish Museum (1973-1975); "Objects from Northwest Coast Indian Cultures", a touchable exhibit for visually handicapped at the UBC Museum of Anthropology (1979-1980); "Kwaqiutl Echo Dance Costume" for the Guaranteed Trust Company (1980); "Northwest Coast Indian Art", a display in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge at Vancouver International Airport (1980 onwards); "Form, Manufacture, Function, and Meaning" exhibited at MOA (1981-1982); "Art of the Northwest Coast Indians" was an exhibition for the UBC Hospital (1983); "O Canada!" at MOA (1984); "Blue Jeans" at MOA (1985); "To market, to market...the culture exchange", an exhibition about tourism and art at MOA (1989); and a Nuxalk exhibit (untitled) of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Stott also worked on a number of audio-visual productions. "MOA Presents" consists of 8 half-hour productions for cable and educational television networks in British Columbia 1980-1981. "MOA Presents Series 2", consists of 6 half-hour programs for the Knowledge Network, public programming in British Columbia 1981-1982. "A Curator's Guide to MOA", a 30-minute audio tour tape, was produced in 1983. Stott is credited with a number of published independent and collaborative articles. Some of these titles include "Guide to the UBC Museum of Anthropology", "Bella Coola Ceremony and Art". Among her published journal articles: "Economic Transition and the Family in Mykonos, Greece"; "Video Disc: Museums and the Future"; "Object, Context, and Process: Approaches to Teaching about Material Culture".

Kuldip Gill was born in Punjab, India; she and her family immigrated to Canada when Kuldip was five years old. The family formally settled in the Fraser Valley area of British Columbia. After working for several years in the resource industry, she pursued and obtained both a BA and MA in Social Anthropology from UBC, the latter in 1982. In 1988, she received a Ph.D. – also from UBC – after extensive travel to Fiji to research the lives of elderly Indian women there.

Fred Ryckman was born in eastern Canada in 1888. As a youth he moved with his family to the Kootenay region of British Columbia where he remained for the rest of his life, residing first in Creston then in Cranbrook. In 1912 Ryckman began his career with the Department of Indian Affairs serving as a constable in that department. During this period he also served in the position of Indian Farm Instructor. In 1931 Ryckman was promoted to the position of Indian Agent, a post he was to hold until his death in 1935. During the twenty-three years of his employment with the Department of Indian Affairs, Ryckman took an active interest in the language and culture of the people with whom he was working, a fact which is reflected in his papers.