Nora Ellen Carleson

Vice President Grants and Projects, 2025-2027

This Vice President oversees and provides guidance to the committees who award CSA’s grants and projects, including the Adele Filene Award Student Travel Award, the Dependent Care Grant, the CSA Travel Research Grant, the Stella Blum Student Research Grant, the College and University Collection Care Grant, the Small Museum Collection Care Grant, and the CSA Angels Project. 

As Associate Curator of Collections at Historic New England, Nora Ellen Carleson is part of a team that curates a collection of over 125,000 objects in thirty-eight historic house museums throughout New England and at the Haverhill Center for Preservation and Collections in Haverhill, Massachusetts. She has a BA in History from Monmouth College (Illinois), an MA from the Smithsonian / George Mason History of Decorative Arts Program, and an MA and PhD in History of American Civilization from the University of Delaware. As a scholar, she focuses on nineteenth-and-twentieth-century material culture, politics, intellectual history, dress design, and fashion. Before joining Historic New England, Nora worked at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardens, the Maryland Center for History and Culture, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, and Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church, Virginia.