Photo: Joshua Franzos

Lisa Haney was in the seventh grade when her fascination with ancient Egypt began. She had a world history teacher who made it come alive through creative assignments, including one in which they mummified Cornish hens from the grocery store. Haney even created a shoebox diorama of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun’s tomb. “One of the main reasons I wanted to work in a museum is to be able to touch all the things that are in the museum,” says Haney. Now, Haney is living her childhood dream as the Egyptologist and curator of Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s upcoming Egypt on the Nile exhibition. Since joining the museum in 2020, Haney has led a multiphase reimagining of the museum’s Egypt gallery that includes conservation of the 4,000-year-old Dahshur boat and ongoing work that visitors can view in the temporary exhibition The Stories We Keep: Conserving Objects From Ancient Egypt. Eventually, the Dahshur boat will become the centerpiece of Egypt on the Nile when it opens, anticipated late next year. A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Haney earned her doctorate in Egyptian art and archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, and held positions at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. She says it’s her calling to share her expertise on ancient Egypt and be a responsible steward of material in the museum’s care. “Science is always changing and evolving,” she says. “The more we learn, the more it changes how we think about and understand ourselves and the past.”  

Q: Why is now a good time to update the Egypt gallery?

A: Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt had been open for over 30 years and, in that time, we have learned so much more about ancient Egypt. For example, we discovered that Senwosret III, the owner of the Dahshur boat, had a second funerary complex located in Abydos that we did not even know about when Walton opened. There are so many new discoveries and exciting stories we want to share. This also gives us the opportunity to present ancient Egypt from new perspectives that speak to the inseparable connection between nature and culture, and are more aligned with our commitments and goals as a natural history museum.

Q: Why is it important to continue conservation on the Dahshur boat, and what new revelations has that work yielded?

A: Archaeological wood is very fragile and does not usually survive well. The fact that we have such a large-scale wooden object in our care is something that is really special. We have learned a lot about how past conservation work affected the boat, which helped with planning its current treatment. We also know from past rounds of multiband imaging undertaken in 2017, as well as some of the new photography, that the boat was once fully painted.

Q: The visible lab that allows visitors to chat with working conservators is a unique part of The Stories We Keep. What has the experience been like for the conservators?

A: Every day from 11:30 to noon and 2:00 to 2:30, you can visit the conservation lab and speak directly to a member of the conservation team. They genuinely enjoy being able to share their work, and people always have lots of questions. The ability to have a direct, one-on-one experience like this is really special. It makes people feel like they are a part of what is happening at the museum and showcases the range of different skills conservators need.

Q: How is the planning going for Egypt on the Nile?

A: I’m the content expert for the exhibition and part of a larger team that has been working very diligently to create the best possible experience for our visitors. Right now we are designing the final floor plan and case layouts, looking at graphics, and laying out all the really exciting and engaging interactives that will be part of the exhibition.

Q: Like many other museums, the Museum of Natural History has decided to no longer display human remains, including mummified individuals. What do you want visitors to understand about that change?

A: We are looking to be at the forefront of best practices regarding the stewardship of the individuals in our care. For ancient Egypt, specifically, their tombs, texts, and material culture tell us a lot about what they hoped would happen to them after they died and how they wanted people to engage with them. That has influenced our decision-making and policy creation.

Q: To visitors, ancient Egypt may seem quite distant from Pittsburgh. How can your work create a connection?

A: As a city on the rivers, I think Pittsburgh has a really clear connection to ancient Egypt. River life is part of its cultural identity. We hope to connect with our audiences through that lens to help them see that life in ancient Egypt was rooted in the Nile River and the surrounding landscapes. It’s not that different from our own local culture and life here in Pittsburgh.

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On March 31, Mario Rossero, who grew up south of Pittsburgh near Hickory, Pennsylvania (where his mother still lives), returns to The Andy Warhol Museum as its new director—28 years after his first stint there as an artist educator. He spent seven years in that part-time post while teaching art full time in the Shaler Area School District. The infectiously enthusiastic Rossero says he “loved being that creative champion for a school—not just the kids, but for the parents, too.” But he knew he had it in him to champion the cause on a bigger scale, even though, as he points out, “the last place a school system is looking for leadership is from the art teachers.” The self-professed “calculated risk-taker” would go on to spend weekends earning his Master of Science in education degree before happily disproving his own theory by not only becoming director of arts education for Chicago Public Schools but also eventually taking over as chief of all core curriculum. Having learned to work on a big scale, Rossero went even bigger when he was named senior vice president for education at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he helped open the REACH, a new space where audiences of all ages and interests could come together with artists for less formal exploration. In January 2020, he was named executive director of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), the leading professional membership organization for visual arts, design, and media arts educators—another full-circle moment, as he’s been an NAEA member throughout his career. As he considers his new position, Rossero says he doesn’t need to go far for his inspiration: “If we’re really smart, we’ll constantly go back to Warhol as the touchstone.”

Q: How does it feel to be coming home to The Warhol?
A:  I couldn’t be more excited. I have a special place in my heart for The Warhol. It was a unique place to be for your first job out of college, but it was also a place that influenced my artwork and my education approach.

Q: What did you love about being an arts educator?   
A: When I was in the classroom, I got to make art every day with young people. I got to be the bright spot in their day—and, for many, the reason they came to school. I felt so fortunate. It’s one of the greatest experiences you could ever have.

Q: What’s one of your best memories as a teacher?
A: I was an arts educator in Chicago’s South Side, in Harold Washington Elementary, and I had 800 kids, 10 grade levels, and 7 classes a day. It was amazing!

Q: What makes Warhol, his art, and his museum such a great resource for teachers and students?
A: The older I get, the more I realize how prolific he was. Especially at the time that he was an artist, we didn’t see artists dabble in so many different media. You have to believe he had a true north to himself. He had a precognizant way about him—almost like he could predict the future. I just think he’s so relevant, and everyone has an in.

Q: Had you considered museum work before?
A: I had started to consider what it would be like to lead a brick-and-mortar institution. So much of my recent work was virtual and national, at a distance.  And I’m a people person; I like to have a community.  During my time in Chicago, especially, I felt I was part of the fabric and fiber of the city. So, I would think about it: leading a staff that’s really committed, being in the heart of a community and a city, contributing to the organization and beyond.

Q: Are you excited about the work of The Warhol’s Pop District?
A: It feels like it was tailor-made to my experiences across my career, especially the past 10 years. The Pop District helps The Warhol become even more Warhol. The community engagement, investing in youth, investing in Pittsburgh, investing in the next generation, all the design work. And then, uniquely, the performing arts space; I spent so much time working with artists, and authors, and playwrights, and production folks at the Kennedy Center, and I feel this new space could offer something really special and unique. 

Q: What do you think is the primary role of museums in education today?
A: Museums are a community hub, a community convener. They’re really this space where we can come together to imagine and be inspired and innovate. And we’re definitely seeing this evolution of a museum as even more of a community space.

We are more than just the art on our walls; we are a space that welcomes in our community to share and express ideas, and hopefully move those ideas forward.

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Photo: Joshua Franzos

More than 100,000 visitors a year dine at the Carnegie Museums in Oakland, and Doug Genovese is in charge of making sure everyone is satisfied. Genovese is general manager of food and beverage services at Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History, where he oversees everything from the grab-and-go sandwiches at Fossil Fuels Cafe, grilled lamb and stone fruit salad at The Cafe Carnegie, and the varied menus for catered events. Genovese wasn’t always interested in cooking. He was planning on a career in software development as a student at Penn State University in the late 1990s. But his experience working at a high-volume steak house convinced him he preferred the kitchen over sitting at a desk. He eventually took an entry-level pantry job at The Pittsburgh Golf Club, where he worked his way up to executive sous chef after eight years. Later, he served as executive chef at Square Cafe before he became the executive chef at the Oakland museums in 2017, where he’s continued to work his way up through the ranks to the position he holds today. Genovese credits his Italian grandmother with fostering his love of cooking, and he works out concepts for new dishes at home, though his 12-year-old son’s palate skews more toward fast food. “He likes mac and cheese and burgers and that kind of jazz,” Genovese shrugs. “He’s a kid doing kid stuff.”

 By Chris Fleisher  

Q: The food at Fossil Fuels Cafe and The Cafe Carnegie are very different. How do you develop those varying menus?

A:  It’s being able to adapt to the upper end of the food spectrum and the lower end of the spectrum, and still providing really high quality. We make in-house pizzas, we make all of our dough in-house. Same with the sandwiches. We want to make sure that everything’s made in-house and is done with care. We just have to take a fine-dining view of things and translate it into something more casual.

Q: Is there a dish that you’re particularly proud of?   

A: I really enjoy making fresh pastas, making bread, and doing very simple, earthy, fundamentally satisfying products. 

Q: Your love of cooking came from being with your grandmother in the kitchen. What did you cook together? 

A: One of my favorite dishes that she used to make is a very thin pork schnitzel. It’s not the most vegetarian friendly, but it’s a labor of love when you do it correctly. 

Q: How did those early experiences inform your work here? 

A: I think it’s more about treating people well, hospitality, and having food as a nurturing component of your life as opposed to just sustenance.

Q: There is a growing awareness around dietary restrictions. How do you account for that in the menus you plan? 

A: We use a lot of acid, a lot of pickles, and things to enhance the umami flavors. You’ll see a lot of mushrooms, lightly fermented things like cucumbers, herbs, carrots. And you’ll see more pungent vinaigrette. It gives it all a bigger flavor. One of our goals in the cafe is to provide quality vegetarian items without people thinking it’s vegetarian or vegan. We want them to look at the dish and think this would be really awesome to eat just because it’s really good, not because of any specific dietary concerns.

Q: In 2022, you started collaborating with local chefs who consult on The Cafe Carnegie menu. How do you choose the chefs you partner with? 

A: A lot of the time it is word of mouth. But Tara Rockacy, the farmer and owner of Churchview Farm, has been instrumental in helping us find and connect with local chefs.  

Q: What’s your next partnership? 

A: Above and Beyond Catering is this year and into early next year. They’re amazing. They do local farm-to-table stuff, they do a lot of catering, they have a cafe. Just really great people, too. 

Q: Do you try out new concepts with your family? 

A: Oh my, yes. We make a vegan ramen with shiitakes, chiles, onion, soy sauce, and lots of garlic, making noodles and broth. We were testing out wings and went through 10 iterations. My wife and son are definitely my guinea pigs for everything.

Q: Have they ever rejected anything? 

A: My wife’s not into the hot-dog eggs that I make for my son. We make cheesy eggs with hot dogs in them. I know, it’s gross.

Q: And that hasn’t made it on the menu? 

A: That’s a reject. But my wife has had a few that have come onto the menu here. The salmon tartare was a direct correlation between my wife loving it at home and it being on The Cafe Carnegie menu.

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Photo: MATT UNGER

In March, Kathy Hollis joined Carnegie Museum of Natural History as its inaugural director of collections care and access. It’s a position that might seem daunting in its scope: She’ll lead the entire collections team—including nine collection managers—in caring for some 22 million specimens and objects that range from birds and botany to archaeological artifacts and dinosaur fossils. But Hollis has managed gargantuan collections before. Previously, the Ohio native worked for 13 years in Washington, D.C., as the collection manager for paleobiology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where she developed and implemented the management strategy for its 40-million-plus-specimens National Fossil Collection. Before that, she was invertebrate paleontology collections manager at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.

Hollis, who holds graduate degrees in geology from The Ohio State University and museum studies from University of Colorado Boulder, says she feels privileged to be at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Her goal is to make the massive collections in the museum’s care—including the most comprehensive record of the nature and culture of western Pennsylvania—more accessible to scientists, students, and the public. “Collections are primary data about the natural world,” she explains. “And if the collections aren’t being accessed or used, then what are they for?”

Q: How did you get in this line of work?

A:  I knew the PhD route wasn’t for me, so I started thinking, “What do I love?” I love fossils. I love organizing things. I love supporting scientific research. I started to look for job descriptions and discovered the role of a collections manager, which perfectly captured all my loves. 

Q: Is this something you’ve always loved?   

A: I have, but my perspective changed during grad school. Before, working in a museum was about escape, about “The world is confusing, but if I work within this collection, I can just be surrounded by these amazing fossils and not really have to think about human problems.” And then in grad school I realized, no, that’s not the point of collections work. It’s actually the opposite. Collections work is about service and connecting people through collections. 

Q: What’s it like working with 22 million specimens? 

A: In terms of depth and breadth, there are parts of our collection that make us unique among other museums. I’m very honored and humbled to be a part of it, and also to be the first person in this role.

Everyone who works here is amazing, as is their work. But collections management hasn’t had a leader in order to speak with one voice. My job is to figure out how to get the collections team what they need to steward the collections. That’s something I’m very excited about—this transformation, this new future-proofing direction the museum is going.

Q: How do you find it being in Pittsburgh? 

A: The pride of this place, and being with a museum that’s an important part of Pittsburgh identity, is really exciting. The Smithsonian, of course, is iconic and amazing, but they weren’t really the region’s museum. I’m very excited to be somewhere so connected to the people who live here. 

Q: Have you established a “typical” workday yet? 

A: Every day is different. One of the big things we’re working on are ways to improve the physical storage so the collections don’t degrade over time. Collections management is about balancing care and access. It’s a balance between making sure something is protected in perpetuity, like “don’t touch, it will damage it”—but then also access— “use this, touch it, analyze it.”

Then there’s the digital access piece. Getting our collection described and searchable online, and figuring out how to get the collection imaged. We want the collections to be searchable if someone across the globe says, “I need frogs from western Pennsylvania,” they can easily find them. Contributing to the global dataset of natural history collections is a big initiative—the informatics piece.

Q: You’ve always loved fossils. Why? 

A: They’re like time machines. Fossils are tangible evidence of what the world was like before humans, in a way that we could only ever know by studying fossils. There’s so much you could learn from them.

Just this morning I was reading about an iconic Burgess Shale fossil. It’s hundreds of millions of years old. These organisms are so well preserved that you could figure out their anatomy and how they lived in a world where there wasn’t even grass. I like to think, “Wow, this thing lived before there were bees flying around.” That’s what I love about fossils—piecing together Earth’s history is imagining a real-life fantasy.

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Photo: John Schisler

There’s a movie poster of Harrison Ford’s iconic character Indiana Jones fixed to Hope Gillespie’s office wall at Carnegie Science Center. It is there for professional inspiration as much as workplace decor. “I cannot overstate the influence Indiana Jones has had on my life,” says Gillespie, who is the museum experiences officer at the Science Center. The film franchise piqued her interest in archaeology—she holds a bachelor’s degree in archaeology from The George Washington University and a master’s degree in the discipline from University College London. But she also just loves the character’s catchphrase about artifacts—“It belongs in a museum”—that informs her work to this day. Since joining the Science Center in 2021, Gillespie has put her archaeology background to use by spending months researching upcoming exhibitions. Her work ranges from studying delicate waterlogged objects in TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition, the blockbuster exhibition that closed in April, to researching the process of animation for The Science Behind Pixar, which opened May 25. Gillespie trains staff and produces supplementary materials to enhance exhibitions. She also spends a lot of time answering visitors’ questions, which is the part of her job she loves most. “I love teaching,” Gillespie says. “I didn’t think that informal education was my superpower until I started to do it.”  

Q: What brought you to the Science Center?
A: I grew up (in McDonald, Pennsylvania) going to the Science Center and the Carnegie Museums in Oakland. In college I became interested in museum studies. Then in 2021, they were expanding the department and needed to hire  two assistant managers.

I’m not a scientist. I will be the first person to admit that. But there’s something special about being able to communicate science to other people. Archaeology is the most science-y of the humanities, but it is also the most human of the sciences.

Q: What do you love about your job?   
A: I’ve had moments that have absolutely brought me to tears. You see a little kid and he wants to tell you everything he knows about the Titanic. You tell him something he didn’t know. He goes home and builds a love of maritime history. It creates a lifelong love of science and that’s what really makes it worth it. It’s not just kids; adults come in and they’re curious. The curious parts of people are often the best parts of people, and that’s what we get to see here. 

Q: What has been an unusually challenging exhibition for you?
A: The most challenging for me personally is Pixar. We’re super excited to have it, but it’s not collection-based. There aren’t many cases with objects in it; it’s all interactive. I am learning the science behind computer animation. I am starting at ground zero and basically building my way up to understanding animation. I get to become an expert on something different every six months, which I never thought I would like, but I do.

Q: What role did you play during the run of TITANIC: The Artifact Exhibition and what do you think about its immense popularity as the most visited exhibition in Carnegie Science Center history?
A: I was involved in almost every aspect of Titanic. I did research, trained docents, trained museum staff, and created tours. I worked on the floors. I spent almost every weekend in the Titanic exhibition, helping people go through and setting expectations. The No. 1 thing that sticks out to me: It’s heartbreaking and very emotionally heavy to do. You’re talking about people’s lives and the night they died.

Q: What has been your favorite exhibition, and how did it appeal to your archaeology background?
A: As an archaeologist, I loved the Vikings: Warriors of the North Sea exhibition. I especially loved the gold Aby crucifix. It brings a lot of iconography together. I think it represented everything that the Vikings exhibition wanted  you to know about Viking culture, which is how connected it was, how it was faith-based, and how those interactions really shaped what it became.

Vikings have kind of a cartoonish image. I think the entire point of that exhibition is to show that they were much more than that; not just murdering and pillaging and raiding. They were artists. They were more than these warriors. I think that’s very much the point of creating exhibits, specifically about culture that way—it’s to show how multifaceted they are.

Q: If you could choose a new exhibition on any topic for the Science Center, what would it be?
A: I am an archaeologist, but specifically the area I studied was Egyptology. If I love anything academicwise, it’s Egyptology. There are two really cool traveling exhibits out there. I would love a King Tut exhibit. There’s also a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit I would love to get.

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Grace Marston wants to be the preeminent Andy Warhol scholar of her generation. A 32-year-old Pittsburgh native, Marston first dove into Warhol’s work as a middle school student in Maryland. Years later, while taking a break from college in 2011, she returned to Pittsburgh and pursued her interest in the late Pop icon by taking a job as a gallery attendant at The Andy Warhol Museum, where she continues to share her expertise as an arts educator by teaching courses, presenting lectures, and giving tours. Marston, who expects to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh this year with a bachelor’s degree in History of Art and Architecture, says she wants to show others how Warhol’s art can connect some of the most complex topics and social movements in history. 

Q: How did you get interested in Warhol?

A: In seventh grade, I wrote a research paper and made a documentary video about Warhol. I was born in Pittsburgh, but I was living in Maryland at the time, so I partially chose the topic as an excuse to come to Pittsburgh to visit the museum. I did research in the basement of The Warhol, and now I help middle schoolers with their research projects, so it’s come full circle! 

Q: What about Warhol makes you feel so connected with his work?   

A: Warhol is a gateway to all these different avenues of research and learning. It’s not just about Warhol, but about how he intersects with all these different topics. I love researching the Iranian Revolution, for example, or the political situation in Italy in the ‘70s that led to Warhol’s Hammer and Sickle paintings. I have far-left politics myself, but I’m interested in this artist who’s so associated with capitalism and American consumerism. With my thesis, I’m exploring this question of the ways in which a socialist can enjoy Andy Warhol. 

Q: So, how does a socialist enjoy Warhol? 

A: You can interpret his ’60s Pop paintings as critiques of capitalism. The fact that wealthy capitalists bought them showed that he was telling a joke that they weren’t quite in on. Then, in the ’70s, when he started taking on more blatantly communist themes like Chairman Mao or the hammers and sickles, it reflects that communism became easier to find during the détente era, since he could take those subjects on without worrying about persecution. We can enjoy this irony that Warhol was playing with. 

Q: How do you make Warhol relevant today? 

A: I don’t think it’s that challenging. He’s painted celebrities that are still famous today and predicted a lot of qualities of consumerism, fame, and celebrity culture. In late 2015, after Donald Trump announced his presidential run, I checked Andy Warhol’s diaries for encounters between Andy Warhol and Donald Trump and uncovered this story where Trump commissioned Warhol to do paintings of Trump Tower and then he didn’t end up buying any of the paintings because he didn’t like the colors Warhol used. Warhol was really mad and was talking smack about Trump in the diaries. It was really funny. I did a blog post about that, and it got picked up by a bunch of major news publications including CNN and The New York Times. It was cool to see so many people respond to that story.

Q: What are some of your favorite things you’ve experienced at the museum? 

A: One cool thing I’ve done is an initiative for more queer programming. I’ve done a lot of research on Warhol’s boyfriends and the different ways that his boyfriends would show up in his artwork and impacted his career. I helped develop this curriculum that then became the Dandy Andy Tour, which is all about investigating the queer themes in his art. That’s been really rewarding.

Q: Could you tell us a little bit about the “Collection Close-Ups” you do? 

A: A lot of other arts educators have been making videos about Warhol’s studio practice. I’m definitely more interested in art history and storytelling, so I thought I should make a different type of video. I’ve only done one so far, about the elephant painted by Keith Haring that you see on the fourth floor right now. It had a first life as part of the Met Costume Institute, and then a second half life as an unfinished artwork by Basquiat and Victor Hugo, then Keith Haring brought it into its final form. You wouldn’t know that from just looking at the elephant. I thought that was a good story to start off the Collection Close-Up initiative.

Q: Do you ever think about what Warhol would think about the museum? 

A: His first question would probably be why it was in Pittsburgh, but he has no idea how much Pittsburgh has changed. I would hope he would be proud of what Pittsburgh has become.

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Photo: Abby Warhola

Contemporary art can be inaccessible to some communities. Aaron Levi Garvey, the new chief curator at The Andy Warhol Museum, wants to change that by bringing art exhibitions into different spaces and supporting emerging talent. Prior to coming to The Warhol, Garvey was the Janet L. Nolan Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, where he helped update policies around diversity, equity, inclusion, and access, and acquired works by leading women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ artists. Before that, he was chief curator at The Hudson Eye/Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation in Hudson, New York. And with his partner, Stevie Covart Garvey, he spearheaded the Jacksonville, Florida-based Long Road Projects, a publishing house, residency program, and artist support network.  

Q: What drew you to curating at The Warhol?

A: Warhol always worked with what was current, new, or experimental. He was most interested in new developments in media and technology, and in my opinion, his practice was the epitome of contemporary. From one of his experiments in early film to the Blondie drawing created on Commodore’s Amiga 1000 and his work with image manipulation in the pre-digital era—these contemporary media explorations were at the forefront of his studio practice. His influence is everywhere, from fashion to the Super Bowl and everything in between.

Q: What does supporting emerging artists look like for you?  

A: I often think about what types of support artists need, then I work to make those things possible. Throughout my curatorial work and the co-founding of a residency program, I saw supporting emerging artists as an import-export model of both highlighting regional and international artists simultaneously—bringing outside artists into a community and then exporting relationships and connections. Rather than asking artists to work for exposure, it’s more: “Artists, come here, so that we can get exposure to you.” Often support comes in many different models and forms, from writing letters of recommendation, leveraging relationships and partnerships, and providing material resources.

Q:  Who are some of the artists you’ve supported early in their careers, through your curatorial work at museums and the Long Road Projects? 

A: Gamaliel Rodríguez, Li Hongbo, Masaomi Yasunaga, Shikeith, Elizabeth Webb, Rachel Libeskind, Rachel Rossin with solo exhibitions; and Paul Weiner, Curtis Talwst Santiago, Dustin Harewood, T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, Tony Rodrigues, and Hiromi Moneyhun through residencies; and some through both. I worked with Rodríguez on his first solo museum exhibition at the SCAD Museum. Fast-forward to now, and he was the signature image at the Whitney for their 2023 exhibition No existe un mundo poshuracán. Shikeith is based in Pittsburgh and has been a longtime collaborator. We mounted a solo project at Atlanta Contemporary together, and during his Long Road Projects residency, he began research and a body of work that eventually became the crux of his first monograph “notes toward becoming a spill.”

Q: You focus a lot on diversity, equity, and inclusion. What does that concept mean to you and how do you implement it in your museum work?

A: I have always felt that, if I have a seat at the table, it is my duty to either bring others to the table with me or give up my seat so that others can be there. I am a facilitator and conduit.

As a third-generation Jewish person in North America, so much of what I focus on in building relationships is an evolution of the values my great-grandmother instilled in me. And much of that means facilitating access. I have focused most of my efforts on creating unique opportunities of support for artists, educational opportunities for communities to more deeply understand the arts and humanities, and creating arts spaces that are comfortable and welcoming for all folks in order to break the stigmas associated within the arts as being elitist.

 Q: How do you see yourself implementing that community-building strategy in Pittsburgh?

A: I want there to be a kind of “leveling” or “even-ing” in the community. We are evenly all rowing in the same direction, trying to make this city an arts epicenter. I want people to think of Pittsburgh beyond just the Carnegie International, beyond the Steelers, the Penguins, the Pirates. I’ll be at all of those games—but I want people to think of the city for the arts. This is a place for artists to live, and live well. I’d like to bring people here that have never been to the city, as well as uplift artists within the region with museum support. There’s a lot of growth in Pittsburgh in both the museum and underground scenes. The convergence of the underground and highbrow was Warhol. That’s why I’m so excited about this museum and city!

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Photo: John Schisler

As the mechatronics engineer at Carnegie Science Center, Doug DeHaven is a in-house Mr. Fix-It, as well as the creative mind behind many of its popular interactive exhibits. He built what is likely the world’s largest binary flip clock using commonplace items like IKEA shelf brackets and fire alarm boxes. He created the world’s biggest sound-activated Button Wall, where kids hit 200 different buttons to produce sounds, requiring 5,740 wire terminations that he installed by hand. 

A 20-year veteran at the ripe old age of 40, DeHaven set his sights on the Science Center early in his career, first as a volunteer—always high-energy, with an infectious excitement about his work. “I love science and technology,” he says. “I’m passionate about this crazy stuff. And that’s what inspires me to create new exhibits here.”   

Q: How did you come up with the binary flip clock?

A: They wanted art for this wall and an artist would be really expensive, so they tasked me to come up with something. We did the engineering on it and we figured it out. 

The fun part was I had to write a custom algorithm for it. If all the clock flips over, all digits at midnight, it would overload the power supply. So each tile has a slight delay to the start of the flip. The result is an undulating wave up the wall as all the tiles flip in sequence.

Q: What did it take to get a job like this?  

A: My background started in my senior year robotics class at North Hills High School. They had a little mobile robot I started playing around with. Apparently, I was coming up with really good ideas for it. When the owners of the company were servicing it, they wanted to know if I wanted a job. I got hired right out of high school. But I decided I wanted to go to school and learn more. I went for one year of college and could not stand it. I realized I’m a hands-on learner and I decided I would take jobs to learn everything I wanted to know.

Q: From working jobs in engineering, manufacturing, and robotics, the Science Center caught your eye. How did that develop into your dream job?  

A: I applied and they had no positions available, so I worked as a volunteer for a year. They loved me so much as a volunteer they hired me on as a full-time presenter. Then I got hired into the tech department. Finally, I worked as an specialist. Then I was into the development of roboworld® as eventual head of robotics. After doing that, I started developing exhibits in other areas and helping make previous exhibits better, so they wanted me in the design department. I ended up creating my own dream position of mechatronics working in [computer-aided design]mechanical engineering, software development, and electronics—allowing me to leverage all my experience from many of my previous jobs. 

Q: Kids can be tough on equipment. How have you learned to keep interactives operating correctly?

A: Kids are the best product testers. If it’s meant to be pushed, they’ll twist it. If it’s meant to be twisted, they’ll push it. They will literally break steel from just repeated touching. Material science has really become our world. We have to figure out how it is going to hold up to kids. Is it going to be safe if it does fail? We have to look at other industries. The joysticks we use, for example. We were buying arcade ones and kids were breaking them. Now, we’re buying ones made for industrial cranes, and those hold up better.  

Q: The basketball robot has been a big challenge over the years. What happened to the first one? 

A: The original was created in partnership with the Science Center in 1996 by Henry Thorne, the entrepreneur who went on to create 4moms baby products. He was the owner of the robot company that hired me out of high school. He programmed the basketball robot. It had developed flaky memory chips and had no hard drive in it. Anytime there was a big power outage it would lose everything, including the operating system. You had to load nine floppy disks’ worth of software back into the memory. You had to reconfigure everything back by hand. It was an adventure. 

It survived for only one more year after that. Its memory got so bad it would forget where it was. When a robot weighs 6,000 pounds, you don’t want it to forget where it is. It would be moving and then it would slam into the floor and leave a giant hole. One day we had a call from presenters who were freaking out: “The robot is throwing the floor!” as a large chunk of floor was being dragged about. At that point, we knew it was time for a new robot.

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The line between art and science is blurry for Gretchen Baker. “Art was always a way that I explored nature, and it helped me understand biodiversity,” says Baker, the Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin Director of Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The Illinois native began her career at Chicago’s Field Museum, where she entered as a scientist and eventually became deputy director of exhibitions. Before joining the Museum of Natural History in April 2021, she had also served as vice president of exhibitions and living collections for the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County and managing director of museum experience at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Baker’s appreciation for the relationship between art and science has only grown since she began working in Oakland. She loves how visitors can “get lost” in the building that the Museum of Natural History shares with the Museum of Art. Part of the imprint she hopes to have is exploring how the two museums can work together even more closely.  

Q: You have a background that bridges both art and science. Where do you see these two worlds intersecting?

A: When it comes to doing exhibition design and development in natural history museums, we’re always using art in the service of science. Through the artistic process of scientific reconstruction, we can understand what an extinct animal really looked like when it was alive. And there’s the more immersive part of using murals, media projections, or reconstructing environments with lighting and sound. Art is a critical tool to understanding and appreciating science.

Now, being in Oakland, we get to take that a step further. Museums rarely include scientific and art collections under the same roof; I’m really excited about that.  

Q: There have been a lot of discussions about museums confronting the difficult legacy of the artifacts in their care. What kinds of discussions are you having with staff?  

A: The initial step is uncovering the life history, or provenance, of the objects and specimens in our care. Sometimes this is well documented, other times it requires more research into archives, field notebooks, etc. Then, there’s how and where to share these histories with the public. We know from visitor research that people are interested and concerned about where collections come from.

 In addition to what we want to add to exhibitions or other modes of public engagement, there is also the question of removing items from public view. We are talking a lot about the ethics of display and interpretation, and particularly, how to ensure that descendent communities and ethical stakeholders are part of that decision-making process and storytelling.

Q: How do you help visitors understand why you may have to make changes to some of the exhibitions?  

A: We’re trying to use these moments as an opportunity to help our visitors understand more about the kinds of questions that museums have to ask. But to remove anything abruptly from display would be the wrong approach.

You think about the art museum and they’re constantly changing the galleries. I think visitors accept the dynamic quality of art galleries. For some reason, there’s more nostalgia around some of the displays in the natural history museum. But knowledge and understanding change, and as a scientific institution, I believe we have a responsibility to showcase current and accurate information, and this may mean that long-beloved displays need to change.

Q: You’ve worn hearing aids since the age of 4. What are some things you’d like to do at the Museum of Natural History to make it more accessible?

A: I had a powerful experience in the museum recently. The director of a science museum in Japan visited and asked to tour the museum. She had lost her vision in the last decade so she held my arm as we walked and I verbally described what was around us. In the Grand Staircase, as I described it to her, she said, “Oh, I can tell” because of the way it sounds in here. It struck me because I can’t rely on sound to make sense of the world; I rely much more on the visual. I wish she and I could spend weeks together walking around the museum and describing it to each other. What a rich experience that would be.

As a museum, we have a long way to go to be accessible for all disabilities and needs. Working to accomplish that—through an array of strategies—will ultimately make the museum a more meaningful and memorable experience for everyone. 

Q: What has been your greatest challenge in the past year and a half? 

A: I’ve had to get to know my entire staff basically via Zoom. The thing that I always enjoy the most in my museum jobs are my colleagues. Onboarding and getting acquainted has been very different in this mostly virtual setting and I’ve had to be patient in building rapport, trust, and familiarity, and we’ve all had to evolve ways of communication and collaborating. It’s been such a relief to have more opportunities to be together in person these last few months! 

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Photo by Renee Rosensteel

“Astronomy is not a secret society,” says Daniel Horenstein. “Science is for everyone, and I feel I can really make a difference here at the Science Center.“ Horenstein joined Carnegie Science Center this spring as manager of the Buhl Planetarium & Observatory at an exciting time in the Buhl’s history. Just days after Horenstein arrived, the planetarium fully reopened following a multi-phase renovation that included a new, Pennsylvania-made dome, a high-resolution projector system, accessible seating, and assistive learning devices for people with hearing and visual impairments. Horenstein came to Pittsburgh by way of California, where he taught astronomy and was director of the Tessmann Planetarium at Santa Ana College. He studied astronomy at Columbia University in New York and earned a master’s degree in physics with an astronomy concentration from Georgia State University in Atlanta, where he organized outreach telescope programming for the national White House Astronomy Night in 2015.

Q: Are there moments from childhood that you look back on as formative to your career and life path?
A: I was always into astronomy and had various telescopes throughout my life, but I really wanted to be an architect until I realized you had to know how to draw. When I was in second grade, there was a book in the elementary school library on BASIC programming language. My parents had an older computer in the basement. If I broke it, it wasn’t really a huge deal, and having that opportunity to play around and begin programming got me thinking in a logical mindset. Programming is how almost all modern astronomy is done. There’s so much data and I’m trying to see what that data is trying to tell me.

Q: What about science appeals most to you? 
A: I like science because it’s both technical and creative at the same time. A lot of people think it’s cut-and-dried—do this, this, and this and win the Nobel Prize. Something I want to communicate through the planetarium is that science is a creative medium. You can express yourself through experimental designs just like you can through oil painting, ceramics, or an artistic field.

Q: How is the Buhl poised for the future with its recently completed renovations?  
A: Everything in the planetarium from top to bottom is brand new. The projectors are new—10 of them work together to create a full-sky projection. We can show full-dome movies, but we also can show the night sky in greater clarity and detail from Pittsburgh or any other location in the universe. We can visit the planets and see their real terrain and we can see Earth’s terrain, cities, and even weather with data pulled daily from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. You can travel anywhere in the solar system, including Mars.

Q: How do you hope to use the Buhl to inspire others?  
A: It’s amazing how many people have never looked through a telescope. People describe it as a life-changing experience. A planetarium is different, but in the planetarium it’s never cloudy and we can take tours to anywhere in the solar system. I get to make science fun and focus on being inclusive and bringing opportunities to as many people as possible.

Q: What is it about space that captivates you?
A: One of the most mind-blowing conclusions to me is the idea that the atoms inside you are directly related to cosmic processes. The Big Bang created hydrogen and helium. The stars turned on a few hundred million years after that and processed into heavier elements. Then some stars, at the end of their life span, imploded in a giant event called a supernova, and this pressure wave created all the other elements we see.  So, every piece of you is traceable directly either to the Big Bang, nuclear fusion in the center of a star, or a giant explosion called a supernova. It’s an amazing connection we share between ourselves and the cosmos. We are the universe.

Q: Why is it important for us to consider life on Mars? How will the Science Center’s new Mars exhibit be important in considering our future? 
A: One of the key takeaways of the Apollo era is simply to say, yes, we as humans did this impressive thing. For all of our differences on Earth, when we really put our minds together and focus on a singular goal, we can do great things. I think getting to Mars will be a new generation of that kind of moment. It’s a global endeavor, with all of humanity working toward the goal of branching out in the solar system one step at a time.

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