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Development

Mark Dahlager - Director of Exhibit Development and Design

Mark has an extensive background in biology and natural science. He has completed the coursework for an MS in Biology and Plant Ecology at St. Cloud State University.

Mark has worked as a naturalist at several local nature centers. At the Science Museum of Minnesota, he started as an interpreter and demonstrator before joining the design and development team. Mark developed the Mississippi River Gallery and World of Ecology exhibits, and was PI on Science Buzz, Lost Egypt, Dallas, and Dead Sea Scrolls. He assumed his current position in 2004 and led the department through the development of RACE: Are We So Different?, Wild Music, Water: H2O = Life, A Day in Pompeii, and a great many other exhibits.

Mark lists his favorite museums as the City Museum ("obviously") and the Corning Museum of Glass: "beautiful objects, nice architecture, cool demonstrations, challenging and engaging programs that allow visitors to make glass stuff to take home."

His favorite non-Science Museum exhibit is Free Spirit: Stories of You, Me and BC at the Royal British Columbia Museum: "nice objects (both special and everyday). Everything is presented in a very engaging narrative, featuring both historical and modern stories, with a wide diversity of perspectives. Fun and whimsical at places and tragic and heart-wrenching at others, and a nice web project to gather visitor's stories."

In his free time, Mark leads a team of treasure hunters every year in the St. Paul Winter Carnival Medallion Hunt (their record: 0 for 7, with 6 "real close"). He is also an accomplished seed artist. (It's a Minnesota thing.)

Adele Binning - Exhibit Developer

Adele began working at the Science Museum as the lead teacher in school services, teaching students from the St. Paul school district in daily hands-on science classes. This was a natural outgrowth of her previous experience, teaching courses in ecology and evolution at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine; Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin; and at the Associated Colleges of the Midwest Wilderness Field Station in northern Minnesota.

Adele joined the Exhibits Department in 1993 as an exhibit developer for Hunters of the Sky, a traveling exhibit about birds of prey. She later worked on the Human Body Gallery and the Collections Gallery, two permanent exhibits in the new Science Museum of Minnesota facility that opened in 1999.

Adele was project leader for developing exhibits for the new visitors' center at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. She has also worked on exhibits such as Wind Power; When Crocodiles Ruled; Mysteries of Çatalhöyük; Wild Music; World of Ecology; and the NISEnetwork.

Adele holds an MA in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin and maintains close ties to the natural resources and renewable energy communities. Adele once rode her bike from Minnesota to Texas to visit her grandfather; learned to play a mean accordion at the age of 35; and now records birds, wolves and any other organisms that will open their mouths in her presence.

Chris Burda - Senior Exhibit Developer

Over the last three decades, Chris's work has included the development, design, production and management of numerous exhibits and special projects. Some of her favorites include Plants Get Sick, Too; Calculus: Curves, Flow and Motion; Playing With Time; Experiment Gallery; Wolves and Humans; Bionics and Transplants; and Big Back Yard, a 10-acre outdoor science park.

Working with the museum's Community Partnerships Serving Science project, Chris developed and staged workshops for 75 community-based science organizations in the Twin Cities Area and assembled a Project Toolkit accessible online. As part of the Learning Places team, she coached at-risk teens in designing STEM learning environments for installation in the urban housing villages where they live.

Chris has consulted for and developed exhibits with the Exploratorium, Minnesota Children's Museum, The Raptor Center and other museums and nonprofits. Since 2004, she has served on the Board of Minnesota Transportation Museum.

When considering her favorite museum, Chris hails Science North as "fearless. It opened with simple or no exhibit graphics, instead employing dozens of visitor assistants to facilitate experimentation with natural phenomena and technologies."

Thor Carlson - Exhibit Developer

Thor is one of the newest members of the exhibit development team. From 2001-2007 he was part of the Science Museum's floor staff, leading tours, giving demonstrations, and learning first-hand how visitors use exhibits. In 2008 Thor became a developer, working on the traveling Lost Egypt exhibit. He has also been part of the Science Buzz team, posting entries to the Science Buzz blog and writing exhibit stanchions.

Thor earned a BS degree in mass communications from Minnesota State Mankato. Prior to working at the Science Museum of Minnesota Thor was the editor of Good Age, a monthly newspaper for older adults in the Twin Cities.

When asked about his favorite museum, Thor admits, "I'm a junkie for visiting the Minneapolis Institute of Art—not so much because I'm an art connoisseur but because it always gets me to look at a bunch of different things in different ways."

Eugene Dillenburg - Exhibit Developer

Eugene has been in the exhibits business for 20 years. From 1989 to 1997, he worked at The Field Museum of Natural History as an exhibit developer, copywriter and project manager on numerous projects. In 1997 he joined The Shedd Aquarium as lead exhibit developer for the award-winning Wild Reef exhibit. Eugene came to the Science Museum of Minnesota in 2001 where he has worked on Playing With Time; Robots and Us; Cabaret Mechanical Theatre; Questionable Medical Devices; Science Buzz; the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology Visitor Center; the National Canal Museum, Fossil Mysteries; World of Ecology; Lost Egypt and other exhibits. Eugene has three times worked on projects that won MUSE Awards for use of technology in exhibits, and in 2009 was co-winner of AAM's Excellence in Exhibit Label-Writing competition.

Eugene is very active in the museum professional community. He served on the Board of NAME (National Association for Museum Exhibition) from 1999-2006. Eugene has published exhibit-related articles in various journals and contributed to two exhibit books. He has given numerous presentations and workshops at museum conferences.

Despite being a full-time employee of the Science Museum of Minnesota, Eugene lives and works in Lansing, Michigan. As he explains it, "my partner is a librarian at Michigan State University. She needs to be near the books; I just need to be near an internet connection." Eugene teaches in the Museum Studies Program at Michigan State, where he is also a Research Associate.

Cari Dwyer - Exhibit Project Leader

Cari received a BS in Agricultural Journalism (now called "Life Sciences Communication") at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1991. Prior to joining the museum, Cari was an award-winning producer for both Minnesota and Wisconsin Public Radio. She brings ten years of research, writing and program production skills to her work in exhibit development. Cari has also worked as a science writer for Earthwatch Radio, a program broadcast on 130 radio stations throughout the U.S. and Canada.

At the Science Museum, Cari has worked as exhibit developer or project leader on such exhibits as Invention at Play; Cornell Lab of Ornithology Visitor Center; Science Buzz; Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear; World of Ecology and Wild Music.

When asked to name a favorite museum, Cari listed two extremes. On the one hand, she remarks that The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum "engaged me like no other exhibit experience I've had." But on a much lighter note, she also enjoyed The Rock in the House in Fountain City, Wisconsin. (Not to be confused with the House on the Rock.) "In 1995, a boulder suddenly rolled down a cliff and plowed into a two-bedroom house. A local real estate investor bought the house and turned it into a tourist attraction... I love that the rock is still in the house and that handwritten notes tell what the couple who lived there experienced when the rock rolled into their newly-remodeled home."

Kathy Glover - Exhibit Developer

Kathy has a bachelor's degree in history from the College of St. Catherine. She began her career at the Science Museum in 1984 as a visitor assistant in the exhibit galleries. In 1985 she joined the Education Division and worked with teachers in the Continuing Education department. Her career in exhibit development began in 1989.

Since then, Kathy has worked on such exhibits as Bionics and Transplants; Antarctica; Bears: Imagination and Reality; Hunters of the Sky; Mysteries of Çatalhöyük; Robots and Us; and the award-winning RACE: Are We So Different? She also helped develop two of the permanent exhibits in the Science Museum's new facility, the Human Body Gallery and the Collections Gallery.

One of Kathy's favorite museum experiences came courtesy of her son, age 7 at the time. He created "an Earth Day museum out of bits and pieces of things he'd found in his travels. He set it up ala a lemonade stand, and interpreted it for joggers and dog walkers."

John Gordon - Exhibit Developer

John earned a BA in Anthropology and English at Hamline University. He completed an internship in Community Relations at the Science Museum in early 2006, and then was hired as floor staff for the Body Worlds exhibit. After working as a gallery supervisor, a gallery team lead, and a Science Buzz blogger, John moved to exhibit development in the spring of 2008. Since then, he has continued to work on the award-winning Science Buzz blog and exhibits, as well as the Nano Informal Science Education network (NISEnet).

When asked for is favorite museum, John answered the question with a question: "Does the House on the Rock count as a museum? It's like being hit by a tidal wave of bizarre, except tidal waves are probably better organized. I love it."

Sara Ilse - Exhibit Developer

Sara first came to the Science Museum in 1996, after earning a BA in anthropology with a minor in philosophy from Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She worked as a collections management technician for a year, then participated in an archaeological survey in Michigan, Illinois and Iowa during the summer of 1997.

Sara returned to the Science Museum of Minnesota in 2000 when she joined the exhibits department. Her major projects since her return have included Mysteries of Çatalhöyük; Robots and Us; National Canal Museum; the award-winning RACE: Are We So Different? exhibit; and Lost Egypt.

Sara has a beautiful daughter, a crazy chocolate lab, and an astounding collection of multi-colored socks. She enjoys quilting, cooking, biking and sea kayaking in Lake Superior.

Bryan Kennedy - Exhibit Project Leader

Bryan started at the Science Museum in 2000 as a floor supervisor for Special Exhibits, after earning a BA in Geology at Macalester College, Saint Paul. In 2001 he was hired as an instructor and internet developer in the museum's Learning Technologies Center, where he developed curriculum, taught classes and organized after-school programs about robotics, 3D animation, computer programming and game design for youth ages 9-16.

Bryan also created online and exhibit-based multimedia experiences for Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees; Robots and Us; and Mysteries of Çatalhöyük. In 2005 he came to the Exhibits Department to manage our award-winning Science Buzz website.

Bryan is also currently developing exhibits, media, and web resources for the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net). He is also working with new scientific visualization tools, trying to understand how these tools best engage and educate our visitors. Bryan regularly speaks at conferences on the use of technology in museums.

Asked to name a favorite exhibit, Bryan nominated The Clark Collection of Mechanical Movement Models at the Museum of Science, Boston. "Staring at this wall of movement and transformation just mesmerizes me," he says. "I could stand there all day watching a worm gear or staring at a Scotch Yoke. All these basic mechanisms are tucked away everywhere in our little technological worlds and it's fun to try and figure out how they all work."

Paul Maurer - Exhibit Project Leader

Paul earned a B.A. in theatre arts from the University of Minnesota, primarily because everything else sounded too hard, and worked in theater throughout the 1970s before coming to the Science Museum in 1979. He eventually rose to the rank of Director of Exhibits, a position he filled from 1986 to 2003. As division director, Paul led all exhibit development, design, production, and maintenance.

During his tenure, the exhibits division expanded from 10 staff to 65. Starting 1985 with Wolves and Humans, Paul built the Science Museum of Minnesota's traveling exhibits program into one of the most respected programs in the country, producing twelve exhibits that have visited more than 90 venues throughout the United States and Canada. In 1995, Maurer created a new revenue center for the Science Museum by establishing the Exhibit Products and Services program, which has designed and built exhibits for more than 100 museums in the United States and Europe.

Maurer was instrumental in establishing the design strategy for the Science Museum of Minnesota's new facility, which opened in December 1999. He worked with the architects and contractors throughout the design and construction of the building, representing programmatic values and concerns as a member of the project management team.

Since returning to the Science Museum of Minnesota in 2005, Maurer has served as project director for the California Science Center's exhibit Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear. He is currently working on CSC's World of Ecology exhibit.

Paul cites Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum, an architectural gem in Fort Worth, Texas, as one of his favorite museums.

Karen Pollard - Exhibit Project Leader

Karen has kept pretty busy since joining the Science Museum staff. The exhibits she has worked on include Managing Light; Prairie Maze; Camera Obscura; National Canal Museum; World of Ecology; Fossil Mysteries; and Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear. She is currently working on the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), nurturing a nationwide network of informal science educators in creating and distributing nano-focused programs, forums and exhibits.

Prior to joining the Science Museum, Karen contributed to the development and construction of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. She served on the Board Member of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, and has been published in the museum professional journal, the Exhibitionist. Karen has an MFA in Museum Exhibition Planning and Design from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and a BA in Theater from Virginia Wesleyan College.

Karen ranks the City Museum in St. Louis as her favorite (besides the Science Museum of Minnesota, of course). "I hyperventilate with joy in that place," she says. "Inside, I'm an 8 year old girl being egged on by her best friend to try something fun but scary, too. The rush is incredible."

Liza Pryor - Exhibit Project Leader

Liza began work at the Science Museum as an exhibit development intern for Hunters of the Sky, a traveling exhibit about birds of prey. She then spent four years on the exhibit floor, installing and striking traveling shows, supervising crews, and developing and delivering programming. Somewhere along the line, she picked up a BA in Anthropology from Macalester College, with minors in Biology and Art.

Liza returned to the exhibits division in 1997 as an exhibit researcher/developer for the traveling exhibit If These Walls Could Talk (now known as Raise the Roof). She served as lead developer for the new facility's Dinosaurs and Fossils Gallery; the museum's touring exhibit When Crocodiles Ruled; Invention at Play, an exhibit collaboration with the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center; and Phase I of the World of Ecology project. She's currently the project leader for Science Buzz, the Science Museum of Minnesota's current-science exhibits and programs. She also heads up our 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.

Liza has a hard time picking a favorite museum. "It's a tie between the City Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin. The City Museum because, well... it's beautiful and fun and wordless and full of exhibit risk-taking that pays off. And the Circus Museum because I still want to run away with the circus, and that museum lets me imagine what it would be like... It's brilliant."

Bette Schmit - Exhibit Development Group Manager

Before coming on board, Bette worked at the Minnesota Children's Museum for over eleven years, holding a series of positions from exhibit developer to project leader to department director. During her tenure as department director she oversaw exhibit development, design, production and maintenance, as well as the traveling exhibits program. Prior to working at MCM, Bette earned a BA in Music History from University of Minnesota, and worked for several years at United Arts in St. Paul, an organization supporting small- and mid-size arts organization in the Twin Cities.

Fast-forward to 2006, and we find Bette involved in several major projects in a very short time. She served as Senior Exhibit Developer for Water: H2O = Life, organized by the American Museum of Natural History and the Science Museum of Minnesota, and for the Science on a Sphere installation at the Science Museum of Minnesota. She also served as Project Lead and Exhibit Developer for Science & Art, a traveling exhibition for the Arkansas Discovery Network.

Bette finds it impossible to name a single favorite exhibit. But one that rates special mention is Teen Facts, an exhibit about puberty at The National Center for Science and Technology in Amsterdam. (NEMO, in Dutch.) "With a light and somewhat comedic touch, this often hard-to-discuss subject is made enjoyable and informative for youth and adults alike. Really clever."

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