MAJOR PROJECTS

NCMNS Exhibit Development

As Senior Exhibit Developer, I help create, update, and maintain content for exhibits for all of the Museum’s locations. That means understanding each exhibit’s goals while also organizing the millions of small details that will help us reach them.

My ultimate goal is to meet visitors where they are, so I make recommendations and decisions that help us bridge the gaps, large and small, between exhibit content and the viewer.

One recent example, pictured here, is updated number pins for labeling gems and minerals within the Underground North Carolina exhibit. I wanted to be more inclusive and accessible by choosing larger numbers that would be easier to see in the dim lighting of the gallery. This was one detail in a much larger project that included new graphics, color schemes, and casework within the exhibit.

NCMNS Evaluation Committee Chair

I organize evaluation projects from start to finish, including conceptual development, study methods, data collection, data analysis, and reporting. I have chaired this committee since 2015 and was co-chair prior to that.

Audience: Museum staff and stakeholders

When the Museum closed due to COVID-19, I coordinated a comprehensive survey to help determine when and under what conditions visitors were likely to return, as well as how they were using our online amenities in the meantime. The survey was distributed to 17K email subscribers and received 1327 responses. I used a shared google spreadsheet to analyze data along with other collaborators, created tables and charts, and wrote the final 37-page report. This report helped the Leadership Team and Mobilization Group to plan reopening policies and procedures.

Exquisite Creatures Special Exhibit, 2021

As a member of the Special Exhibit Committee, I help select, plan for, and evaluate special exhibits for the Museum.

Audience: Museum visitors, especially Spanish speakers

For the Exquisite Creatures exhibit, I established an editing template to reduce the total amount of text on the graphic panels so that we would have room to translate the text into Spanish. I coordinated the translation with external consultants as well as our internal Spanish-language expert. I collaborated with the graphic designers and reviewed all labels before they were printed (example shown in photo).

NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Greenville, 2021

I collaborated with other staff to create content for our latest satellite location in Greenville, NC. This included a variety of exhibits that were repurposed from the Nature Research Center, and some new exhibits that we created from scratch. This interactive reader rail (shown) was created for the Astronomy Lab.

Audience: All ages

Main Message: OpenSpace visualizations are based on real data.

NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Greenville, 2021

I conceptualized and pitched the idea for this exhibit for the Greenville location to solve a couple of problems: We had an empty case & a donated, amateur shell collection with no real message or interpretive goal. I collected additional items (eggshells and turtle shells), wrote all new exhibit labels, helped organize all items in the display, and consulted with content matter experts to finalize all of the text.

Audience: Elementary school age

Main Message: Shells are protective features that have evolved in many different animals.

Beyond Curie: A Celebration of Women in Science, 2018

I coordinated the content for this exhibit, including organizing and delegating writing tasks to the other exhibit developer on staff. This was a collaboration between NCMNS staff and artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, with augmented reality additions created by NCSU’s School of Sciences.

Audience: High school and college aged students, especially young women

Main Message: Women have made important, sometimes overlooked, contributions to science. You can become a scientist and do important, interesting work too.

Intended Outcomes: Target audiences will

• Perceive science and scientists as exciting, fun, and accessible

• Perceive science as a cool way to explore a personal interest

• Become aware of careers in science

• See the relevance of science to their daily lives

Science Needs You, Citizen Science Hub, 2018

I helped conceptualize all of the components for this exhibit, which included multiple videos (for which I produced scripts and storyboards), several interpretive panels, and many interactive elements within a small space. Most importantly, I wrote the intentional framework for the exhibit, which articulated the main messages, goals, outcomes, and impacts that our group wanted to accomplish.

Audience: Families with kids; Adults (especially Millenials, teachers, and lifelong learners)

Main Messages: Citizen science is science you can do, and it is important.

Intended Outcomes: We want visitors to feel…

• Inspired

• Motivated

• Important (i.e. they’re making a contribution)

• Connected (i.e. part of a larger community)

• Empathy/Concern (for wildlife, environment, etc)

• Curiosity (to learn something new, discover something)

PACE Evaluation Project, 2015-2018

I filled in as grant administrator for this three-year grant-funded evaluation project. I would have played a role in the evaluation process regardless, but at the time, we had very few development staff due to turnover. I arranged meetings, coordinated workshops, oversaw the budget and disbursements, and submitted reports to the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

I also helped museum staff understand the results and recommendations of this extended evaluation project, by giving updates, arranging calls, and giving presentations at staff meetings (example in image). As a result of this project, I attended the 2018 Visitor Studies Association conference, gave a poster presentation on the process and results, and wrote a case study for Randi Korn’s book, Intentional Practice for Museums: A Guide for Maximizing Impact (2019).

RACE: Are We So Different? Special Exhibition, 2017

My role in this project spanned both exhibit development and evaluation, as so many of them do. I worked with a small group to translate portions of the exhibit into Spanish by choosing, editing, and organizing the text that would be translated. (Full translation was impossible due to limited space.) I also helped develop the Cultural Conversations space where programming would occur, which did double duty as an exhibit space when programs were unavailable. During the run of the exhibit, I curated the handwritten “comment cards” (shown) that were submitted by visitors, choosing which would be displayed and which would be archived from the hundreds of comments submitted each week.

For this exhibit, I coordinated extensive evaluation of both the exhibit itself and all associated programming. I created a comprehensive report about the impacts of the project. All told, we collected responses from 3,555 participants, including electronic kiosk surveys, emailed surveys, and pre/post exhibit interviews.

Secret World inside You Special Exhibit, 2016

I helped brainstorm a projection mapping theater exhibit that would stand-in for the classroom space, because budgets did not allow for hiring of educational staff. I created a character, Genny, who becomes ill with a mysterious infection but is eventually saved by beneficial microbes.

Audience: All Ages

My many tasks in this project included mannequin selection and acquisition, consultation with 3D and 2D designers, collaboration with digital media staff, script writing and storyboarding, video production and talent acquisition, and exhibit evaluation.

Extreme Mammals Special Exhibit, 2015-16

We collaborated heavily with the Museum’s wildlife biologists to add special exhibit elements to this traveling exhibit from the American Museum of Natural History. To explain the “Candid Critters” initiative by Museum researcher Roland Kays, for example, we included a “camera trap” interactive in which visitors were caught by our motion-activated camera as they passed by a diorama.

Innovation in evaluation: First use of electronic kiosks for survey responses

We also included a very intense video piece called “Extremely Rare,” for which I wrote the script and storyboard (shown in image). This video featured captivating photos of endangered species, using images by photographer Joel Sartore of the Photo Ark project, along with text and music. We wanted to motivate visitors to help conserve endangered mammals by emphasizing the current alarming rates of extinction, and explaining how researchers are leading the way in studying and conserving rare animals.

NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Whiteville, 2015

I coordinated the content of multiple exhibits, including prehistoric archosaur replica exhibit (in photo), investigate lab, naturalist center, discovery forest, and “in your backyard” ecology exhibits. I shared writing duties with one other exhibit developer and collaborated with many other staff to produce the final content.

Audience: All ages, Columbus County (underserved population, Tier 1 county)

The extinct predator shown here is called Postosuchus, and it belonged to the major group of “ruling reptiles” known as archosaurs. Postosuchus had a partially-armored body that was up to thirteen feet long, a broad skull with dagger-like teeth, and large eyes with good long-distance vision.

Nature Research Center, Raleigh, 2012

I coordinated all of the content, including three rounds of label review & approval, for over 80,000 square feet of exhibits. These exhibits ranged in subject matter from engineering and nanotechnology to extinction and genomics. Interpretation focused on “how do we know” content, engaging visitors in the scientific process, and encouraging citizen science.

Audience: All ages

Impact Statement: Audiences appreciate the process that scientists use to study our world—past, present, and future—and contemplate the countless ways they can engage with others in the scientific enterprise.

Nature Research Center, Raleigh, 2012

Investigating Right Whales reader rail

Audience: All ages

In his “recipe for a work of art,” Rothko said, “There must be a clear preoccupation with death.” Thus, the Investigating Right Whales exhibit could be defined as a work of art in which mortality and extinction are on plain view. In this exhibit, we wanted to write labels that brought about empathy in the visitors, but did not make them feel distress or hopelessness.