The Field Museum
Director, Gantz Family Collections Center
Chicago, Illinois
The Field Museum, one of the world’s preeminent natural history museums, seeks a dynamic, imaginative, and collaborative science professional as its next Director of the Gantz Family Collections Center. The Director will provide strategic vision and direction for the Museum’s collections and programs, overseeing maintenance, use, and growth of what is currently 30 million specimens and artifacts that are studied by the national and international scientific community and serve as the basis for the Museum’s conservation action, public education, permanent and traveling exhibitions.
A private institution, The Field Museum is considered one of the premier natural history museums in the United States. The Field Museum is distinctive in its encompassing the fields of anthropology, botany, geology, and zoology under a single roof; its collections are among the world’s largest, rich in both historic and modern material. Research and environmental conservation techniques and standards developed at the Museum have become definitive and authoritative. The Field attracts up to 2 million visitors annually and interacts digitally with ever increasing numbers around the world.
Reporting to the Vice President of Science and Education, the Director will be a trusted colleague and partner for the directors and staff of other departments throughout the Museum. With them, the Director will continue The Field Museum’s work of collecting, cataloging, and researching specimens and artifacts, while envisioning future directions and opportunities for collections to play increasingly central roles in our lives and society. The Director leads a staff of more than 50 accomplished professionals and distinguished scientists.
The new Director of the Gantz Family Collections Center will join The Field Museum at a pivotal point in its history. Reorganization in 2012 has reinforced the central role that the collections play in inspiring and supporting the scientific, educational, and programmatic work of the Museum. The Director will be a passionate champion of collections management, research, education, and conservation action in the biological, geological and cultural sciences; a thoughtful manager of people, processes, and systems; a compelling public advocate for the Museum and its collections; and an energetic presence and partner in the Museum’s broader community.
Please direct all inquiries, expressions of interest, and nominations in confidence to: Anita Tien, Vice President; Ben Tobin, Managing Associate; and Cortney Tunis, Associate at Isaacson, Miller: www.imsearch.com/5888.
The Field Museum strives to create a working environment that is free of sexual, racial, and ethnic discrimination, and that promotes human dignity among all staff. As such, it is the policy of The Field Museum to hire without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, or veteran status.
The Field Museum is an Equal Opportunity Employer.