Development
- Mark Dahlager
- Adele Binning
- Chris Burda
- Eugene Dillenburg
- Cari Dwyer
- Kathy Glover
- Sara Ilse
- Bryan Kennedy
- Karen Pollard
- Liza Pryor
- Bette Schmit
Mark Dahlager - Director of Exhibit Development and Design
Mr. Dahlager, Director of Development & Design, started at the Science Museum of Minnesota in 1989 developing programs and demonstrations performed throughout the museum. Mr. Dahlager has been developing exhibits since 1996 when he developed the environmentally-themed exhibit Green Streets; he was the lead developer for the Mississippi River Gallery (one of the long-term exhibitions in the new Science Museum) and is the Co-PI for Science Buzz (the Science Museum of Minnesota's award winning current science program). Mr. Dahlager is a principal in the World of Ecology project for the California Science Center and is currently serving as the Project Leader in partnership with COSI for Lost Egypt, a traveling exhibition for the Science Museum Exhibits Collaborative. Mr. Dahlager oversees all design and exhibit development efforts and a staff including Project Managers, Exhibit Designers, Graphic Designers, Multimedia Designers, and Exhibit Developers
Adele Binning - Exhibit Developer
Ms. Binning has been at the Science Museum of Minnesota since 1990. She began her work at the museum as the lead teacher in school services, teaching students from the St. Paul school district in daily hands-on science classes. From 1993-1995 Adele was an exhibit developer for Hunters of the Sky, a traveling exhibit about birds of prey. In 1995-1996 she developed Wind Power, a 700 sq. ft. exhibit funded by the Dept. of Energy and highlighting wind energy in Minnesota. Ms. Binning developed exhibits for the Human Body Gallery and the Collections Gallery in the new Science Museum of Minnesota that opened in 1999. Ms. Binning served as project leader for the development of exhibits for the new visitors' center at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. Ms. Binning holds an MA in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin and has taught courses in Ecology and Evolution at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and Ripon College in Ripon, WI. She has taught field courses on the Ecology of the Boreal Forest at the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Wilderness Field Station in northern Minnesota and maintains close ties to the natural resources and renewable energy communities. In 1985 Ms. Binning spent five weeks traveling from Minnesota to Texas by bicycle and also plays a mean accordion.
Chris Burda - Senior Exhibit Developer
Ms. Burda began her career with the Science Museum in 1980 as an exhibit developer. Significant projects included Wolves and Humans: Coexistence, Competition and Conflict; Bionics and Transplants: the World of Replacement Medicine; and the Experiment Gallery, an interactive physics hall. During a fifteen-month leave of absence from the Science Museum, she co-designed and fabricated two interactive exhibits at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Concurrently, she attended graduate school at the John F. Kennedy Center for Museum Studies. Her thesis research studies design techniques used to present complex and/or controversial issues in science museums. In 1993, Burda left the Science Museum and served as lead project developer at Minnesota Children's Museum where she was part of the master planning team for the new museum that opened in September 1995. While at the Children's Museum her primary accomplishment was the development and design of World Works, a 4,750 square-foot art and science exhibit for children three to seven years old. Chris returned to the Science Museum in 1996 as senior exhibit developer developing exhibits for the new facility's ten acres of outdoor park space.
Eugene Dillenburg - Exhibit Developer
Mr. Dillenburg began his museum career in 1989. He worked for The Field Museum of Natural History as exhibit developer, copywriter and project manager on numerous exhibits, including American Indians, Asian mammals, and dinosaurs. In 1997 Dillenburg joined The Shedd Aquarium as Lead Exhibit Developer for the Wild Reef exhibit. Eugene came to the Science Museum of Minnesota in 2001 and has been involved in developing the traveling exhibits Playing with Time and Robots and Us, as well as projects for the National Constitution Center, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, the National Canal Museum, the San Diego Natural History Museum, and other clients. Eugene has served on the Board of NAME (National Association for Museum Exhibition) since 1999, first as Regional Representative and currently as Membership Chair. He also chaired a task force on Excellence in Exhibition, and was a featured speaker at AAM's Exemplary Interpretation Seminar in 2001. Eugene has delivered presentations and workshops at conventions of the American Association of Museums, the Association of Science-Technology Centers, and the Visitor Studies Association, as well as various local and regional museum conferences. Eugene teaches in the Museum Studies Program at Michigan State University, where he is a Research Associate. He has had articles published in the journals Curator, Exhibitionist, and Hand to Hand.
Cari Dwyer - Exhibit Developer
Ms. Dwyer began working at the Science Museum of Minnesota in March 2001. Prior to her work with the museum, she was an award-winning producer for Minnesota Public radio. She brings ten years of research, writing and program production skills to her work in exhibit development. As the former project leader for the Science Museum's Current Science initiative, Ms. Dwyer lead the museum's early efforts to produce timely exhibits about current science events and topics. She has worked as a researcher and exhibit developer for two different versions of Invention at Play, exhibits the museum produced for the Smithsonian Institution's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History. Ms. Dwyer also served as exhibit developer on a project to create a new visitors' center at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. Currently Ms. Dwyer is working on Wild Music, a traveling exhibition that explores the commonalities among the musical sounds that animals of many sorts produce and the responses these musical elements evoke in themselves and others. Dwyer worked as a science writer for Earthwatch Radio, a program broadcast on 130 radio stations throughout the U.S. and Canada. She received a BS in Agricultural Journalism (currently known as Life Sciences Communication) at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1991.
Kathy Glover - Exhibit Developer
Ms. Glover began her experience at the Science Museum in 1984 as a visitor assistant in the exhibit galleries. In 1985 she joined the education division working with teachers in the community education program. Her career in exhibit development began in 1988 as an exhibit developer on the Bionics and Transplants exhibit. Ms. Glover has been involved in the development of the traveling exhibits Antarctica, Bears: Imagination and Reality, Hunters of the Sky and the permanent Human Body Gallery and Collections Gallery in the new museum. Glover has a bachelor's degree in history.
Sara Ilse - Exhibit Developer
Ms. Ilse was first employed at the Science Museum of Minnesota as a collections management technician from 1996-1997. She rejoined the museum as an intern exhibit researcher for the Mysteries of Çatalhöyük exhibit in 2000 and was hired as a full time exhibit researcher later that year. Since then, she has researched and developed exhibits for Robots and Us and an exhibit for the National Canal Museum in Easton, Pennsylvania. In 2004, Ilse was promoted to the position of exhibit developer. Ms. Ilse holds a BA in anthropology with a minor in philosophy from Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Bryan Kennedy - Exhibit Developer
Mr. Kennedy began work at the Science Museum in 2000 as a floor supervisor for Special Exhibits. He was hired on staff as an instructor and internet developer in the museum's Learning Technologies Center in 2001. From 2001-2004 he developed curriculum, taught classes, and organized after-school programs about robotics, 3D animation, computer programming and game design geared towards youth ages 9-16. During that same time Kennedy created online and exhibit based multimedia experiences for the Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees, a museum produced Omni film; Robots and Us; and Mysteries of Çatalhöyük. In 2005, Kennedy was promoted to the position of exhibit developer to work on Science Buzz, the Science Museum's "current science" exhibits and program. Kennedy continues his work on Science Buzz and is currently developing exhibits, media, and web resources for the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), an initiative to get exhibits about nanotechnology into 100 museums in the next five years. Kennedy regularly speaks on the use of technology in museums and can be found on the museum's media and technology blog, Beyond the Button.
Karen Pollard - Exhibit Developer
Ms. Pollard came aboard at the Science Museum of Minnesota in January 2005. Her first work was with the National Canal Museum, developing components for their permanent gallery as well as a traveling exhibit. This combined two of her passions; science and history. Other projects include: World of Ecology, Fossil Mysteries, Light, Prairie Maze and Goosebumps! The Science of Fear. Prior to joining the Science Museum, Ms. Pollard contributed to the development and construction of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia as Exhibit Coordinator, Exhibit Project Manager and Exhibit Manager.
Ms. Pollard has a MFA in Museum Exhibition Planning and Design from the University of the Arts and a BA in Theater from Virginia Wesleyan College. She is a former Board Member of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums and has been published in Exhibitionist.
Liza Pryor - Senior Exhibit Developer
Ms. Pryor began work at the Science Museum in 1993 as an exhibit development intern on Hunters of the Sky, a traveling exhibit about birds of prey. She was hired on staff in 1994, continuing to work with the Hunters of the Sky project through its completion. Pryor left the exhibits division to be the lead floor supervisor for the special exhibits gallery (1995-96), installing, striking, supervising, and participating in programming for eight different traveling exhibits. From 1996-97 Pryor was hall manager for the Dinosaurs and Fossils Gallery. She returned to the exhibits division in 1997 as an exhibit researcher for the If These Walls Could Talk traveling exhibit. In 1998, Pryor was promoted to exhibit developer for If These Walls Could Talk. She acted as lead developer for the Dinosaurs and Fossils Gallery in the new facility; the museum's touring exhibit When Crocodiles Ruled; Invention at Play, an exhibit for sale to the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation; and Phase I of the design/development of California Science Center's World of Ecology. She's currently the project leader for Science Buzz, the Science Museum's "current science" exhibits and programs, and for the museum's contributions to the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), an initiative to get exhibits about nanotechnology into 100 museums in the next five years.
Bette Schmit - Senior Exhibit Developer
Bette Schmit began her career with the Science Museum of Minnesota in 2006. She was Project Leader for Water Planet, a traveling exhibit that premiered at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (and will open at the Science Museum in late 2008). Prior to joining the museum staff, she was employed by Minnesota Children's Museum for over eleven years. She was lead developer and project manager for Go Figure!, an early childhood math exhibit funded by the National Science Foundation and she was lead developer and project director for Jump to Japan: Discovering Culture Through Popular Art, a project of the Freeman Foundation Asian Exhibit Initiative. Ms. Schmit became Director of Exhibits at MCM on in 2002. In her years as Director of Exhibits she oversaw the museum's exhibit development, design, production and maintenance needs, as well as its traveling exhibits program. During her tenure the museum opened its outdoor gallery, Rooftop Art Park, updated two of its permanent galleries, launched three traveling exhibits, Jump to Japan and two versions of Clifford the Big Red Dog, and worked in collaboration with the Baby's Space Expansion Project to design, produce and install Baby's Space early childhood environments in four Minneapolis child care centers. She was a member of the Youth Museum Exhibit Collaborative (YMEC) board of directors from 2002-2005.