Linda Hadden is a UK-based sampler enthusiast, researcher, and collector known for her work with The Sampler Guild-UK. She specializes in historical embroidered samplers—decorative pieces traditionally stitched to practice skills and record information. As founder of The Sampler Guild, Linda helps research and share knowledge about sampler history, including design motifs, stitching techniques, and cultural meaning. The Sampler Guild-UK brings together enthusiasts and scholars to study these textiles and present findings through talks, lectures, and collaborative projects. Linda is also an accomplished stitcher. She creates detailed reproductions of antique samplers. Her expertise combines practical craftsmanship with in-depth historical investigation. In addition to stitching, Linda collects antique samplers, using them to better understand how needlework developed over time. She frequently speaks at events, appears in podcasts, and engages with the wider stitching community, helping others appreciate the history and artistry behind traditional needlework. Linda continues to preserve and promote the heritage of needlework and especially samplers, through both research and practice.

Scott Koch, M.D., is a 1981, summa cum laude graduate of Centre College of Kentucky and lifelong Kentuckian.  Following medical school, residency, and fellowship, he practiced radiology in Kentucky for twenty-five years.  Scott has a long-standing appreciation for American and specifically Kentucky material arts, particularly the inherent beauty and historical significance of antique needlework samplers. In early 2019, there were no published articles, essays, websites, books, or other academic works regarding Kentucky samplers.  To address this deficiency, Scott launched AntiqueKentuckySamplers.org in late 2019 with encouragement and support from Janet S. Hasson and Jennifer C. Core of the Tennessee Sampler Survey and Amy Finkel of M. Finkel & Daughter. He has remained the sole owner and primary researcher contributing to AKS since its inception. Scott lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife of forty-four years, Marcia. They have two children, (Stewart and Elizabeth), five grandchildren, and an insane Coton de Tuléar (Charley). Scott’s additional interests include travel, genealogy, and bourbon. Scott can be contacted at: Treasurer@SamplerConsortiumInternational.org.

Evangeline (Vangy) Franklin, MD, MPH is passionately interested in the history and material culture of Europe; colonial America and the early Republic; and the European cultural roots of all regions where schoolgirl samplers were an essential component of women’s education. Since childhood Vangy has also had an interest in any activity requiring a needle and thread in any culture and has visited numerous exhibitions during her travels of the world. She was responsible for unearthing the sampler collection at the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans and has volunteered for the Sampler Archive Project on Sampler ID Days in Delaware and Rhode Island. Professionally, Dr. Franklin is an internal medicine physician with broad experience in public health, emergency management, healthcare services, education, and insurance administration. She served as Medical Director of the Special Needs Shelter at the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina and has written articles and spoken at conferences on disaster management. A Princeton graduate with MD and MPH degrees from Yale, Vangy has also worked with the Navajo Health Authority in Arizona, Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma, and studied Cuba’s emergency preparedness. Her honors include the Congressional Black Caucus Heroes Award and the Yale Public Health Honor Roll. She also adopts senior rescue dogs.

Barbara L. Hutson has had a threaded needle in her hand ever since she could hold one. She is an independent needlework designer, researcher, author, and owner of Queenstown Sampler Designs, established in 2005. Her designs can be found in shops worldwide and her embroideries have been awarded ribbons in prestigious needlework shows in the United States. She specializes in researching every sampler maker and including information about her and her family with her sampler designs. Since the mid-1990s, Barbara and her husband Jim have been enthusiastic volunteers at Sampler ID Days, first working with Dr. Gloria Seaman Allen to document samplers in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Delaware, and later with Dr. Lynne Anderson to document samplers in Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New York for inclusion in the Sampler Archive’s online database of American samplers. Barbara is co-author of Chester County Connections, for the 2014 catalog ‘Wrought with Careful Hand’: Ties of Kinship on Delaware Samplers, and published articles on historic samplers in Sampler & Antique Needlework Quarterly and The Gift of Stitching. As a consultant, she has helped numerous museums and scholars identify and interpret samplers in their collections.

Cynthia Shank Steinhoff is the director of the library at Anne Arundel Community College, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1983. She is a stitcher, sampler collector, and needlework researcher. Her extensive collection of antique samplers specializes in works by girls living in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, many of which were made by girls from Quaker families. Cynthia contributed to and edited the exhibition catalog Wrought with Careful Hand: Ties of Kinship on Delaware Samplers (2014) and was co-author of Delaware Discoveries: Girlhood Embroidery, 1750-1850 (2019) with Gloria Seaman Allen. She has shared her knowledge of antique samplers at numerous needlework guilds, Winterthur’s needlework conferences, and a symposium at the Sewell C. Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover, Delaware. An avid genealogist, Cynthia also does presentations to genealogy groups on the topic of samplers as sources of family information.

Jennifer Core is the Executive Director of the Tennessee Historical Society (THS).  She was previously the Director of Membership and Programs at THS and also the state coordinator for Tennessee History Day. Jennifer is a folklorist and educator by training with masters degrees from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Indiana University, Bloomington. She formerly held positions at the Tennessee Arts Commission and the Grand Ole Opry archives. She is co-founder and director of the Tennessee Sampler Survey, a not-for-profit devoted to documenting Tennessee’s needlework heritage. Her areas of research have included Tennessee outsider and folk art, Middle Tennessee baskets, and West Tennessee Choctaw crafts. As a folklorist specializing in historical ethnography and material culture, she combines methodology from the fields of folklore and history. She is the co-author, with Janet S. Hasson, of Tennessee Samplers: Female Education and Decorative Arts, 1800–1900 (University of Tennessee Press, 2025). Jennifer is a former classroom teacher, a native of Knoxville, a resident of Nashville since 2001, and a proud Volunteer.