Introducing Our New Team Members!

We are excited to introduce two new Admiralty House team members, Megan Webb and Elsa Simms. Megan is our Collections Manager Intern and Elsa is the Community Relations Coordinator.

Megan Webb, Collection Manager

Megan is working as our Collections Manager for a summer internship to conclude her Master of Arts degree in Folklore. She will be working primarily on continuing the Stories from the Station research project and conducting research on the items in the museum collection. Megan has a Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology from Memorial University of Newfoundland and her passion is working with artifacts, exhibit displays, and collections management software.

Last summer Megan had an internship working as the Museum Manager at the Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Museum. She has past volunteering experience for The Rooms Museum as well as participating in various community-centered projects through exhibitions at the St. John's Farmers Market and Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador. Megan has conducted research projects on local heritage such as Tessier Park Neighbourhood Association's garden project, and assisted in planning and executing events in the local Folklore and Archaeology communities.

In her natural habitat, Megan loves to tend to her garden of garlic, peas, mint, and oregano. She is also incredibly passionate when talking about her cat named Waffles. 

Elsa Simms, Community Relations Coordinator

Elsa is an Historian and Archaeologist from St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador. Elsa just finished her MA in History at Memorial University under the supervision of Dr. Shannon Lewis-Simpson and Dr. Marica Cassis in Viking Age Sweden and interactions with the Byzantine and Islamic Empires. During her MA she travelled to Stockholm, Sweden to study Byzantine and Islamic artefacts from burials from the Viking Age site called Birka. Elsa spent several days working out of the museum and surveying the site to assess the importance of cross cultural interaction and burial customs. Elsa also has a BA in Classics and History from Memorial University and a Graduate Diploma in Archaeology from University College Cork in Ireland where she focused on Viking Age interactions in the North Atlantic and Ireland.

Elsa has previously worked for several years as a museum interpreter and educator at The Rooms Provincial Museum. Elsa also worked for Dr. Lisa Rankin and Maria Lear in Nain and Rigolet at the Nain Moravian Cemetery doing ground penetrating radar (GPR) and working as an archaeological field technician at Double Mer Point on an Inuit Village under the supervision of field director, Robyn Fleming. Elsa worked most of the pandemic in Ontario doing cultural resource management archaeology with Timmins Martelle Heritage Consultancy (TMHC) where she worked as a senior field archaeologist on sites that needed archaeological assessments before building could occur. She worked all over Ontario with TMHC and especially enjoyed her time working in Thunder Bay. Most recently, Elsa was a field technician and co-author on a project headed by Dr. Shannon Lewis-Simpson in New Perlican assessing an early European burial ground at Bloody Point also alongside Maria Lear and Rita Uju Onah.

You may wonder what any of this has to do with Mount Pearl, but despite being from St. John’s Elsa has played Rugby with Dogs Rugby Football Club for years and was active in punk bands around Mount Pearl in her youth (she even played Frosty Fest as a teenager). So, Mount Pearl has a special place in Elsa’s heart!

We are excited to have Elsa and Megan start working on Projects here at Admiralty House! Please check out our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@admiraltymuseum) for more about Admiralty House Communications Museum. We are open from 10am-4pm Tuesday to Friday.