Michael John Gorman named new director of MIT Museum
Michael John Gorman, a museum professional who has created and run several organizations devoted to science and the arts, has been named the new Mark R. Epstein Director of the MIT Museum.
Gorman takes over for longtime director John Durant, who has led the museum since 2005 and most recently oversaw the design and construction of the museum’s new purpose-built home in Kendall Square.
Gorman is slated to start this summer.
“We are excited to welcome Dr. Gorman to MIT,” Philip Khoury, vice provost and Ford International Professor of History, said in a statement. “He brings a wealth of experience in creating and leading dynamic institutions bridging science and the arts, and we are impressed with his vision for the MIT Museum as a center for transdisciplinary public engagement.”
Gorman is the founding director of BIOTOPIA, a Munich, Germany-based center for life sciences and the environment. In recent years, he has concentrated on exhibitions, operations, and programming that combines science and the arts, while also serving as a tenured professor at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilians University.
Gorman, who is originally from Ireland, previously served as founding director of Science Gallery at Trinity College in Dublin, a public space dedicated in innovation, science, and the arts. He also served as founder and chief executive of Science Gallery International, a nonprofit that seeks to establish similar galleries with universities on other continents.
At MIT Museum, Gorman inherits a dynamic new cultural venue replete with gallery space, forum areas, learning labs, a public maker hub, and collection of some 1.5 million objects.
“I see the MIT Museum as a dynamic public forum, a place to encounter possible futures, and a leading center for public engagement at the nexus of science, technology, and the arts and design,” Gorman said in a statement. “I’m greatly looking forward to building on the excellent work that’s been done by the museum team since its re-opening at the spectacular new site in Kendall Square in 2022, and to realizing the museum’s vast potential as MIT’s window to the world.”
The new position is a bit of a homecoming for Gorman, who in 2000 held joint postdoctoral fellowships at MIT’s Dibner Institute and Harvard University’s Department of History of Science.
Gorman, who has curated numerous exhibitions over the years, is the author of several books, including “Idea Colliders: The Future of Science Museums,” published by MIT Press in 2020.