As a follow-up to September’s conference on alternative careers, Lisa Roberts will join us to share her unique post-PhD journey.
Lisa Roberts is an educator, writer, curator, and planner. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where she researched the history and philosophy of education in museum settings. Much of her work in recent years has centered on developing unorthodox ways of connecting people to the natural world, with a special interest in artistic and technological media. She’s the former director of Garfield and Lincoln Park Conservatories in Chicago and spent the early part of her career at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Field Museum of Natural History. Since 2006 she has been an independent consultant to museums, gardens, parks and nonprofit organizations. She has written and lectured widely about a range of subjects related to the public dimension of museums and is currently an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Museums and Social Issues and has served as an advisor to a variety of civic and community organizations over the years.
Student Lunch
11:30pm-1:00pm
Folklore Archives
Details forthcoming.
Lecture: Making a Living as a Museum FanGirl
2:00pm-4:00pm
Denney Hall 311
What happens when you love reading and writing and studying and thinking and a few years go by and you find yourself in a phd program but you don’t really want to make the university your life’s work? In Lisa Roberts’s case (and yes, that extra “s” after the apostrophe is correct—I learned it in grad school), you make your way to another behemoth of an institution, The Museum. Lisa has worked for a number of types of museums wearing a variety of different hats. Hers has been a circuitous path, from chemistry to philosophy of science, cabinets of curiosity to museums, knowledge to narrative. There's a train of thought there, driven by an interest in how people make meaning. But how do you make a living out of that? That’s what we’re going to talk about.
