As a generalist, I think the best thing about what I do is having the freedom to explore different topics. My museum-world projects have encompassed everything from jazz and veterinary medicine to civics and ecology. Other work includes corporate websites and branding guidelines.

National Music Museum

Photos: Luci Creative

Location:  Vermillion, South Dakota
Role:  Text writer
Design:  Luci Creative

Luci Creative paired with another writer to craft the text for a huge renovation and expansion of the National Music Museum. The museum’s collections comprise more than 15,000 instruments, including some of the earliest pianos ever made, a wide variety of marching band instruments, a Stradavari guitar, an English cittern from the 1500s, and exceptional collections of brass instruments, clarinets, and harmonicas.

Broad Discovery Center

Photos: Gretchen Ertl

Location: Cambridge, MA
Role: Writer
Design: CambridgeSeven, natalie zanecchia Design
MeDIa: Cortina Productions

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard is a community of more than 6,000 scientists, doctors, and other thinkers who have come together to advance the understanding, treatment, and prevention of disease. The Discovery Center is a small museum in the Broad’s lobby that explores how cutting-edge genomics have led to breakthroughs in a wide range of diseases. I worked directly with Broad Institute science communicators and scientists to help develop content and write copy for the exhibits, delving into everything from the biologic basis for psychiatric conditions to targeted treatments for cancer, diabetes, and malaria.

Philipse Manor Hall

Location: Yonkers, NY
Role: Writer
Design: Amaze Design
Media: Trivium Interactive

Philipse Manor Hall is a grand building, originally built in the 1600s with many additions over the centuries. It was once part of an enormous 52,000-acre estate, or manor, owned by a wealthy colonial family of Dutch ancestry. I wrote the copy for new exhibits exploring the whole history of the Hall and manor, introducing visitors to the three groups of people who shaped its story: the Native Munsee, European colonists, and enslaved workers of African descent.

Neilson Library, Smith College

Oculus photo: Nic Lehoux

Location: Northampton, MA
Role: Content Developer, Writer
Design: Proun Design

Over the course of its 100-plus years, Smith’s Neilson Library has evolved to meet the changing needs of students and faculty. Most recently, renowned architect Maya Lin has created a transcendent new design for the library that retains its original entrance but infuses the space with light and wonder. The inaugural exhibit in the library’s gallery traces this rich history through image, sketches, and text.

Taking Action, Hamm Middle School

Location: Arlington, Virginia
Role: Content Developer, Text Writer
Design: Main Street Design 

On February 2, 1959, four young people entered Stratford Junior High School in Arlington, Virginia, becoming the first Black students to desegregate a public school in the state. Sixty years later, Stratford was renovated and renamed to honor a local civil rights activist: Dorothy M. Hamm. Sarah collaborated with local historians, school staff, and Dorothy Hamm’s daughter to develop the content for five exterior exhibit panels that trace the unwavering efforts of children, parents, and the NAACP to end school segregation in Virginia. 

The exhibit received a DESIGNArlington Merit award from the Arlington County Board in 2021 for its success in integrating site context and design.

Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park

Archival photos: Library of Congress; National Archives

Location: Hilton Head, South Carolina
Role: Content Developer
Exhibit Design: Proun Design
Landscape Design: WLA Studio
Community Engagement: Dina Bailey

I was part of the concept design team for new exhibits at this park, site of the first self-governed African American town in the United States. Union Army general Ormsby M. Mitchel, the town’s namesake, established the settlement for formerly enslaved refugees in 1862. The park’s slogan, “freedom began here,” encapsulates Mitchelville’s significance—its residents were free to earn a living, worship, and educate their children. Interpretation will explore the various meanings of freedom, perhaps even asking visitors their own definition.

New Canaan Museum & Historical Society

Location: New Canaan, Connecticut
Role: Content Developer, Writer
Design: Theory One

I developed content and wrote text for exterior graphics outside the historic buildings on the Society’s campus, as well as some interpretive panels inside an 18th-century tavern. The narrative traces New Canaan’s evolution from farmland to suburb, artist community, and showcase for Modernist architecture. 

Science at Wellesley

Location:  Wellesley, Massachusetts
Role:  Content developer, text writer
Design:  Museum Design Associates, HER Design

Science and math have been integral to the Wellesley experience since the all-women’s college opened in 1875. A series of object-rich exhibits in the college’s newly renovated and expanded Science Center highlights students, faculty, and alumnae who have established and transformed many different fields within the sciences. Visitors meet pioneering astronomers, psychologists, environmentalists, public health leaders, chemists, geologists, naturalists, computer scientists, robotics experts, and more.

American Writers Museum

Photos: Amaze, Inc.

Location:  Chicago, Illinois
Role:  Content developer, text writer
Design:  Amaze, Inc.
Media:  Northern Light Productions, White Oak

The American Writers Museum celebrates the power of words to move, thrill, provoke, amuse, inform, and astonish. The museum also recognizes the centrality of writers in articulating and challenging what America stands for and believes. Exhibits balance media immersion with quieter experiences for in-depth exploration, including opportunities for creativity and wordplay.

April 19, 1775

Location: Concord, Massachusetts
Client: Concord Museum
Role: Content Developer, Text Writer
Design: Amaze Design
Media: Richard Lewis Media Group

On April 19, 1775, colonial forces shot British Regulars at North Bridge in Concord. This action set in motion the American Revolution, forever changing history. As a content developer and text writer, I worked closely with the Amaze Design team and Concord Museum staff to bring this dramatic story to life via objects and first-hand accounts of the events. In addition to showcasing icons like a lantern that signaled to Paul Revere that the British were on the move, exhibits took great care to give voice to all of the participants—from the townswomen of Concord to soldiers of color.

Frederick Douglass: Agitator,
American Writers Museum

Photos: Amaze Inc.

Location: Chicago, Illinois
Role: Content developer, text writer
Design: Amaze, Inc.

Author and orator Frederick Douglass rose to prominence mid 1800s as one of the most passionate and eloquent voices of Abolitionism, drawing own his own experiences as formerly enslaved person. This temporary exhibit—for which I served as content developer and text writer—focused on the second half of Douglass’s career, during which he pushed for passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, raised public alarm about violence against African-Americans in the South, and continued to demand true equality for all Americans.

All Aboard!

Client: Science City / Boston Children’s Museum
Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Role: Content Developer, Text Writer
Graphic Design: Theory One

Science City is a hands-on science center located inside Union Station, Kansas City’s historic train station. Science City contracted with Boston Children’s Museum to rethink its train-themed gallery for a core audience of kids ages five to seven. As a lead member of the team, I helped develop a richly engaging content program that allowed for imaginative play, hands-on building activities, and content about the history of trains in general and Union Station in particular. A subtheme of the experience is spatial thinking—the ability to visualize three-dimensional objects in space, a skill essential the fields of science, technology, and engineering.

Perfume Passage

Photos: David Whitemyer, Luci Creative

Location: Outside Chicago, Illinois
Role: Text Writer
Exhibit Design: Luci Creative

I wrote the exhibit text for the Perfume Passage Foundation’s high-end private museum celebrating the art, beauty, and business of perfume. Graphics are incorporated into the display of over 2,500 artifacts, including bottles from the height of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements. Content highlights the thought and care behind the design of particular scent and its bottle and packaging.

Caribbean Coast, Stone Zoo

Photos: Caron/Coyle

Location: Stoneham, Massachusetts
Role: Content Developer, Text Writer
Design: Coyle/Caron (exhibits); Karen Drudi (graphics)

The Stone Zoo’s Caribbean Coast puts the spotlight on tropical wetlands, with the American flamingo as its ambassador species and the Jamaican iguana, scarlet ibis, bush dog, and two species of macaws in supporting roles. I worked with the zoo and with the Coyle/Caron design team to create a hierarchy for introducing each species and to determine how to connect the wetlands story to Massachusetts.

SportsZone

Photos: Colin M. Linton

Role:  Text writer
Design:  The Franklin Institute

Exhibit text and displays explore the science of sports from several perspectives. How does the human body move and what keeps it healthy? How does the design of sports equipment and gear give athletes a competitive edge? Finally, what physical forces play a role in different sports? Visitors put this knowledge into practice by pitching, jumping, surfing, and running.

Honoring Nations Traveling Exhibits

Location:  National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.
Role:  Content developer, text writer
Design:  David MichauD (2014,2017); Proun (2019)

Honoring Nations is an awards program organized by the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development to share success stories in American Indian self-government. Since 1999, Honoring Nations has recognized 130 outstanding programs that collectively address a wide range of issues, from employment and housing to resource management and health. In 2014 and again in 2017 and 2019, I served as the content developer and copywriter for exhibits showcasing a selection of the winning projects. These exhibits were displayed at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Your Brain, The Franklin Institute

Photos: The Franklin Institute / Darryl W. Moran

LOCATION:  PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
ROLE:  TEXT WRITER
DESIGN: THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE

As text writer for an extensive, multi-gallery exhibit about how our brains work, I was privileged to explore both known and unknown territory. As the exhibits explain, scientists have learned a lot about the brain, but there is still much to discover. What areas of research will yield new insights into this still-mysterious organ?  

In 2015, “Your Brain” won an award for exhibit excellence from the American Alliance of Museums, which cited its “successful approach of taking very dense subject matter and making it relatable to the visitor.”

Ganondagan Art and Cultural Center

Photos: Amaze, Inc.

Location:  Victor, New York
Role:  Text writer
Design:  Amaze, Inc.

This visitor center is located at Ganondagan, a significant archeological site once occupied by the Seneca (or Hodinöhsö:ni’, as the Seneca call themselves). During the 1600s, Ganondagan was a bustling town at the center of the fur trade … and the conflict sparked by the trade. Artifact-rich exhibits explore the history of the site and celebrate the perseverance and vibrancy of Hodinöhsö:ni’ culture.

Perot Museum of Nature and Science

Photos: Jay Rosenblatt

Location:  Dallas, Texas
Role:  Text coordinator, writer
Design:  Amaze Design

This new museum opened in 2012 with 11 permanent galleries; Amaze Design was responsible for designing five of those galleries. I served as Amaze’s overall coordinator for the text writing effort. In this role, I wrote a comprehensive style guide for the text and oversaw a team of three writers. In addition, I was personally responsible for writing all of the text for two galleries: “Discovering Life” and the “Rose Hall of Birds.”

Rosie the Riveter / World War II Home Front National Historical Park

Photos: Color Ad

LOCATION:  RICHMOND, CALIFORNIA
ROLE:  CONTENT DEVELOPER, TEXT WRITER
DESIGN:  MUSEUM DESIGN ASSOCIATES

As the lead member of Museum Design Associates’ content team, I worked with designers, park staff, and content experts to convey the “home front” story through graphics, object display, large-scale photomurals, propped vignettes, and media. The visitor center, housed in an oil house adjacent to a former assembly plant, was tasked with telling this exceptionally rich history on national scale while emphasizing Richmond’s particular contributions to the war effort. 

In 2015, the visitor center won the John Wesley Powell Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government as an “outstanding historical display… telling a complex story with innovative techniques."

Native Voices traveling exhibit,
Boston Children’s Museum

Location:  Originated in Boston, Massachusetts, now traveling across the U.S.
Role:  Content developer, text writer
Design:  Boston Children’s Museum, THEORYONE DESIGN, Neal Mayer

I served on the core design team for an exhibit about contemporary indigenous families created by the Boston Children's Museum on behalf of the Youth Museum Exhibit Collaborative (YMEC). The exhibit celebrates five specific New England tribes: the Mashpee Wampanoag, Aquinnah Wampanoag, Narragansett, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy.

We worked closely with a large team of tribal advisors to explore how indigenous children honor their heritage while experiencing the challenges and joys common to all contemporary children.

Biogen Corporate Headquarters

Photos: Chris Danemayer / Proun Design

Location:  Cambridge, Massachusetts
Role:  Content developer, text writer
Design:  Small Design Firm, Proverb Llc, Proun Design

I was a key player on Small Design Firm’s development of exhibits for the pioneering biotech company. Located in Biogen’s East Cambridge corporate headquarters, the exhibits aesthetically and interpretively celebrate the company's emphasis on original scientific research. While there are some traditional graphic panel displays, magical technology-driven interactions are at the heart of the experience.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Photos: Amaze, Inc.

Location:  Birmingham, Alabama
Role:  Text writer
Design:  Amaze, Inc.

I wrote all of the text for the museum's first major renovation since it opened in 1992. The new exhibits explored social changes to the city of Birmingham in the 1980s and 90s, highlighted local landmarks in the Civil Rights Movement, and made human rights issues relevant to a target audience of teens.

Countdown to Kindergarten,
Boston Children’s Museum

Location:  Boston, Massachusetts
Role:  Content developer, text writer
Design:  Boston Children’s Museum, THEORY ONE

I conceptualized, developed, and wrote text for an unusual exhibit space: an idealized, or model, kindergarten classroom set up at the Children’s Museum. Hands-on and graphical exhibit components aimed at caregivers help demystify the process of preparing a child for kindergarten, while image-based exhibits help reassure future kindergartners that an exciting adventure awaits them.

Green Patriot Posters: The Revolution Will Be Designed, Design Museum Boston

Location:  Opened in Boston, Massachusetts, now traveling across the U.S.
Role:  Content developer, text writer
Design:  Design Museum Boston

Design meets environmental activism. This traveling exhibit – which I developed and wrote – introduces visitors to the Green Patriot project, which invites designers and artists to create posters that inspire everyday citizens to fight climate change. The show features a selection of the 500-plus posters submitted to the project since its inception in 2008.

Gulf Islands National Seashore

Photos: Amaze, Inc.

Location:  Ocean Springs, Mississippi
Role:  Text writer
Design:  Amaze, Inc.

I wrote all the exhibit text for the Davis Bayou Visitor Center at the Gulf Islands National Seashore, one of the largest national parks in the U.S. As the exhibits convey, the park knits together several distinct natural communities, over 80 percent of which are underwater. The area also has an intriguing human history that includes early European exploration of the Americas and the Civil War.