Major(s): Art History, Italian Studies
What is your current role? What was your journey in arriving there?
I’m the Coordinator of College and Pre-Professional Programs and Museum Educator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I’ve been a museum educator at the PMA for more than 8 years. I teach K-12 students in the galleries and virtually, develop and facilitate teacher workshops, develop classroom resources, collaborate on interpretative plans for permanent and special exhibitions, and coordinate and teach our medical humanities programs. For the past 2 years, I have also been serving as President of AFSCME Local 397, which represents workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Penn Museum, and the Please Touch Museum. After graduating from Wesleyan and then starting my graduate studies at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU, I imagined I would pursue a career in Academia. However, while in graduate school, I came to realize that I loved object-based teaching, and museum education was the path that I wanted to pursue. I love my work but museums, like all institutions, aren’t perfect and I’ve spent the past few years not only focusing on my educational work but also on institutional reform.
What do you enjoy about your work? What do you struggle with?
Every day is different and a surprise. As a museum educator, there are days when I’ll teach a kindergarten class in the morning, a 12th-grade class at noon, and a group of medical students in the evening. I’ve been teaching with the collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for more than 8 years and there are collection objects that I have taught with hundreds of times; no two conversations are alike and I learn something new every day from every group of students. As much as I love my work, I have struggled over the years with the many inequities and injustices that are endemic to the field of museum work. Having said that, I think things are changing for the better as emerging professionals in the field continue to question the status quo.
Do you have any advice for students thinking about entering your industry?
Be changemakers!
Updated as of September 29th, 2023
