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BUILDING THE NEW MIT MUSEUM - BY DR. DEBORAH DOUGLAS (APRIL. 27, 2021, 6:00-7:00PM)

  • 1.  BUILDING THE NEW MIT MUSEUM - BY DR. DEBORAH DOUGLAS (APRIL. 27, 2021, 6:00-7:00PM)

    Posted 28 Mar, 2021 20:29
    Edited by Hiroaki Endo 15 Apr, 2021 09:34

    Join us for a zoom talk by Dr. Deborah Douglas on April 27 (7-8pm) - and learn about the history of MIT Museum, and the future plan.

    Register here: https://aiaa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vsrfXYQASD-9GwFcjnXwgg 

    The idea for the MIT Museum dates back 50 years when Warren Seamans, an administrator in the Humanities Division, was asked to help prepare an exhibition as part of the 1971 inauguration of MIT president Jerome Wiesner. "Reflections" was a big success, so in a tiny corner on the second floor of what was then MIT's furniture warehouse in Building N52, the "MIT Historical Collections" was born. Seamans worked on it part-time, then full-time, recruiting students from MIT and Northeastern's Coop program to clear out more and more of the old furniture. His dream was that one day, the MIT Museum would have a custom built facility, to showcase the Institute's amazing (and sometimes amusing) achievements. Over the past half-century, the MIT Museum has done amazing things at 265 Massachusetts Avenue growing from a small hole in the wall with a few thousand visitors to an internationally recognized museum with nearly 170,000 visitors (pre-pandemic!) annually, an annual science festival that attracts more than 50,000 attendees, and a world-class collection of more than 1.5 million artifacts. Dr. Debbie Douglas will give us an insider's look at the new MIT Museum that will open in Kendall Square in spring 2022 at 314 Main St. (Get it….?!). Her talk will draw special attention to the museum's exceptional aerospace collections and plans to feature them in the inaugural exhibitions and programs.

    Dr. Deborah G. Douglas is Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology, MIT Museum. An Associate Fellow of AIAA, Dr. Douglas is a specialist in the history of technology and science.  Prior to coming to MIT, she held positions at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, NASA Langley Research Center, Chemical Heritage Foundation (now Science History Institute).  Douglas also has taught at Old Dominion University and most years in MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society. She has curated more than three dozen exhibitions on a wide variety of MIT-related science and technology topics, aerospace history and photography. Douglas has written or contributed to five books, three dozen articles and reviews and produced more than 30 video shorts.  She is a graduate of Wellesley College (AB) and the University of Pennsylvania (AM, PhD).  



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    Hiro Endo
    AIAA-New England
    Secretary
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