Jennifer Kirker

Jennifer Kirker is associate director of the Kelsey Museum, where she oversees institutional planning and operations to maximize impact. She is currently focused on coordinating the museum’s strategic plan, external review, and AAM reaccreditation, with a goal of uniting the museum team with university and community partners under a shared vision of the museum as an international leader in archaeological research, student training, and public education of the ancient Mediterranean.

Kirker brings more than 20 years of museum leadership experience and a passion for public education, particularly in connection with university museums. Prior to the Kelsey, Jennifer served as the chief development officer for the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she led a team responsible for raising $3 million annually. Kirker also served as the director of the James B. and Rosalyn L. Pick Museum of Anthropology at Northern Illinois University (2012–2018)—leading the development of award-winning, mission-driven exhibitions that transformed the Pick Museum into a pillar of campus-community collaboration.

An anthropological archaeologist by training, Kirker received her degrees in anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and Pennsylvania State University, completing further coursework at Penn State and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Her work centers on the idea of the museum as a dynamic cultural center for research, education, and empathy. A member of the American Anthropological Association and the Council for Museum Anthropology, Kirker has studied and presented on social justice in museums, solidarity activism, and community co-curation.