Samantha Matalone Cook

Samantha Matalone Cook, BA, MAT is the author and illustrator of Pandia Press’ History Compass: A Guide to Historical Thinking, Research, and Writing. She is currently working on The Ancient World for middle to high school students. The Ancient World will be the first revision of the History Odyssey curriculum. Samantha is also writing the final book in the History Quest series for elementary students.

Samantha Matalone Cook’s love of history extends back as far as she can remember, and was humored by her family with long road trips to see historical sites as well as the gifting of an unrestricted, continuously growing personal library. This passion continued throughout her education, extensive travel around the world, and professional work. Samantha has a BA in Humanities, with an emphasis in Medieval History and Archaeology. An experience while working on an archaeological site in Scotland led her to combine her interests in both education and history into museum work, and she went on to receive an MAT from the George Washington Graduate School of Education and Human Development, specializing in Museum Education. As an educator, Samantha has worked with both small and large organizations to create educational programming that centers and connects the learner to concepts and skills. She was able to share her enthusiasm for history with others by working on archeological sites, as a historian for an art history website start-up, and as a history and humanities educator. She has taught in classrooms and in private workshops, mentored other educators, and worked for and with many museums, including the Smithsonian. She is also a founder and director of several makerspaces, including Curiosity Hacked, an organization that mentored kinesthetic learning with children and families around the world, where she designed and taught art and innovation from both a modern and a historical perspective. After almost three decades of experience in education, program development, and the arts, Samantha continues to teach and write lessons, projects, and curriculum that offer students a dynamic history education and an invitation to life-long learning. To Samantha, the study of History and the Humanities is essential to understanding ourselves and our society, connecting to the human condition, learning compassion and resilience, sparking curiosity and creativity, and inspiring both active citizenship and meaningful social impact.

When she isn’t working, Samantha can be found reading, painting, hiking, or gaming with her family in the magical Rocky Mountains. She has three teens, all home educated, the oldest two of whom have fledged to college.