Staff
Grace Ford-Dirks, Manager of Interpretation and Public Outreach
gforddirks@wyck.org
Grace Ford-Dirks was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. She attended William & Mary in Virginia, where she majored in history and classical studies. While at William & Mary, Grace interned in architectural research at Colonial Williamsburg, in the curatorial department at Winterthur, and at the Historic Charleston Foundation. At the Historic Charleston Foundation, she contributed to the Nathaniel Russell Kitchen House project and worked to recover and analyze material remains from the enslaved quarters on the Russell property. She is a graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, where she studied the objects & architecture of the nineteenth-century American South and earned a graduate certificate in Historic Preservation. While at Winterthur, she completed the MESDA Summer Institute & the Decorative Arts of the Gulf South field research program, and contributed to the the British and Irish Furniture Makers Online Migration and Innovation Project supported by a grant from the Decorative Arts Trust. Prior to arriving at Wyck, Grace worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a research assistant for the American Silver Catalog. She enjoys sharing Wyck’s exciting past and present with the public!
Marsha Lewis, Home Farm Manager
mlewis@wyck.org
Joining Wyck as Farm Manager in 2022, Marsha Lewis has worked in a variety of organic farming models over the years and brings a passion for making fresh produce more accessible to low-income folks. She’s started gardens with the homeless community, practiced bio-intensive farming at a Catholic Worker farm, and served as field manager of a vegetable CSA in Sellersville, PA for four years. Filled with a variety of interests, she also works as a support staff for neuro-divergent persons and is a published poet. Lewis is excited to continue serving the Germantown community on Wyck’s Home Farm.
Kim Staub, Executive Director
kstaub@wyck.org
Kim joined Wyck as Executive Director in 2020, and has over 10 years experience in non-profits and historic site management. Before Wyck, Kim was the Collections and Exhibitions Manager at the Betsy Ross House, where she managed the collections and researched new exhibitions, programs, and interpretations. She was also the Vice President of Philadelphia’s Historic Neighborhood Consortium, where she helped small cultural sites create collaborative programs and raise awareness of rich historic landscape that surrounds Independence National Historical Park. She holds a Master of Arts in History from Virginia Tech, where she won the William Preston Society Master’s thesis award for best thesis in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from McDaniel College.
Jackson Warren, Manager of Living Collections; Horticulturist
jwarren@wyck.org
Jackson grew up gardening in both Maine and Texas, but joins Wyck with a passion for the Delaware Valley’s native plants, as well as the area’s rich horticultural history. Pursuing music composition, Jackson graduated from Carleton College in 2020, and is now enrolled in the Barnes Horticultural program at St. Joseph’s University. Having worked in private gardens around the Philadelphia area for several years, Jackson intends to further cultivate and share the wealth of history and beauty that the gardens at Wyck have to offer the Germantown neighborhood and beyond. In his free time, Jackson enjoys making music, stretching, and working on his truck.