From the National Park Service:
Christine Arato has been named the Regional Historian of the Northeast Region by the National Park Service. Among her goals are forging collaborative partnerships with history practitioners throughout the region, to apply innovations in the field of digital humanities to the NER History Program’s mission and to establish a regional oral history program.
Arato began her position on April 21 at the Northeast Regional Office in Boston. Prior to her appointment she was the service-wide program coordinator for the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 Commemoration. She contributed a chapter to the book Born in the U.S.A.: Birth, Commemoration, and American Public Memory (2012, ed. Seth C. Bruggerman) which focused on issues of commemoration at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site.
Arato graduated with honors from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in European History and an interdisciplinary Master degree in the history and anthropology of American religions. As a Student Conservation Association intern, she served as an interpreter at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and as a landscape historian with the Olmsted Center of Landscape Preservation. After Peace Corps service in Morocco, she joined the National Park Service, contributing to planning efforts for New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park and the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.
In 2001, Christine accepted her first permanent appointment at John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, where she was the supervisory park ranger. Beginning in 2009, she served as Senior Historian and National Historic Landmarks Program Manager for the NPS’ Southeast Region, and as the acting Chief Historian for that region. She also has held acting assignments in NPS’ Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs and as the superintendent of Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, as well as a consultant to the World Bank. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Career Academy for Cultural Resources, the co-leader of the Academy’s Historians’ Initiative, and a founding member the Best Practices working group for the Call to Action’s History Lesson.