A project as ambitious as The Great American Dollhouse Museum needs a team of skilled creators in numerous areas of expertise. Lori Kagan-Moore has assembled a talented staff of designers, builders, painters and artisans with proven records.

From Akiko Otake in Japan to Nicola Cooper in Great Britain and back to John Flint in Kentucky, Lori has a long history of positive working relationships with every member of this energetic team.

Lori Kagan-Moore's professional voyage has led her from a clinical faculty position at Ohio State University's Department of Psychiatry through a number of exciting years as owner and operator of Lori's Antique and Vintage Jewelry in Lexington, Kentucky, to her current position as Curator of The Great American Dollhouse Museum. Coming from several generations of professional antique appraisers, auctioneers, and store-owners, she has a long-term familiarity and love of the antiques business, and miniatures in particular.

Lori holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts in Public Administration (MAPA), and a Masters in Social Work (MSW), both from Ohio State University.

Artisan sculptor and dollmaker Nicola Cooper hails from Dunstable, England.  Over two hundred of her fine small people have arrived from the United Kingdom over the past few months, and we anticipate several hundred more.  Although our village is also populated with antique bisques and porcelains, as well as vintage and imported dolls from many nations, we chose Nicola as our primary dollmaker because of her remarkable ability to sculpt life, movement and real emotion into our population of littles. 

You will enjoy a visit to Nicola's website.

We are delighted to welcome Centre College Assistant Vice President and Associate Professor of Education J.H. Atkins as our Diversity Advisor and consultant on African-American history and culture. He has taught in a variety of public schools at the elementary, middle, and high school levels; he also has extensive administrative experience as an elementary principal and assistant superintendant.

In an age when Googling is a survival skill and first impressions of many organizations will occur through their websites, we sought a master of web design and found that expert in Jon Sachs. With a degree in Graphic Design from MIT and many years experience running his own company, he has developed a wide variety of websites from large commercial ones to small artists’ sites.

Jon’s own website contains a complete portfolio as well as a resume, and… a lot of laughs. (Don’t miss the Infrequently Asked Questions section!).

Akiko spent three weeks at the museum workshop this fall reconstructing a period Japanese home, and tutoring our staff in the differences between Japanese and Chinese costume and architecture.  Having completed a year-long tour of Costa Rica, Peru, and Mexico, where she studied the language and cultures of Latin America, she now returns to her native Japan.

See a slideshow
of Akiko at work.

Ruth’s award-winning scenic designs impressed Lori enormously from first review. Clearly her artistic vision and range render her inestimably valuable to the team. If you click only one link today, make it her Set Design Site.

A registered architect with a degree from The Technion in Haifa, Israel, Ruth is an associate in the Concord, Massachusetts firm of Levi Wong Design Associates .