Associate Director of Conservation and Scientific Research

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art seeks to recruit an Associate Director of Conservation and Scientific Research.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art is committed to preserving, exhibiting, researching, and interpreting art in ways that deepen the public and scholarly understanding of Asia and the world. Currently responsible for some 46,000 objects, the museum stewards one of the world’s most important collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present. The collection includes works from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the pre-Islamic Near East, and the Islamic world (inclusive of Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa). It also stewards an important collection of nineteenth- and early-twentieth century American art. Its rich holdings thus bring the arts of Asia into direct dialogue with a focused American collection, providing a compelling platform for creative collaboration and cultural exchange.

Beginning with a 1906 gift that paved the way for the museum’s opening in 1923 as the Freer Gallery of Art—America's first national art museum—the National Museum of Asian Art has long been a national and international resource for visitors, students, and scholars. Located on the National Mall in Washington, DC, its collections, galleries, laboratories, archives, and library form part of the world’s largest museum complex, which attracts tens of millions of visitors annually. The museum is free and open to the public, 364 days a year. Its exhibitions, programs, learning opportunities, and digital initiatives are accessible to local, national, and global audiences. Each year, hundreds of students, fellows, interns, scholars, and researchers access the museum’s resources and expertise.

As the museum enters its second century, it is growing and transforming. The role of the Associate Director of Conservation and Scientific Research stands as a cornerstone of the museum’s leadership. Primary responsibilities include providing leadership, development, management, and strategic direction to the museum's team of scientists, conservators, research scholars, fellows, and interns. This team is distinguished by its size and the depth and breadth of its expertise in the study, preservation, and conservation of works of art and cultural heritage.

The Associate Director of Conservation and Scientific Research serves as a catalyst for collaboration, advancing the museum’s position as a national thought leader in the conservation and scientific research field. Additionally, they contribute significantly to museum-wide priorities, such as broadening and deepening the museum’s impact, fostering transparency in museum practice, expanding research and scientific knowledge activities, sharing expertise through international partnerships, and building a diverse, resilient, and collaborative community.

Major duties include:
• Providing leadership and management by overseeing the department’s goals, articulating priorities, developing strategies, managing personnel, and evaluating performance.
• Developing annual staffing plans, including hiring and professional development.
• Exercising authority in approving the allocation and distribution of funds, overseeing the development, justification, and execution of the departmental budget.
• Collaborating with museum leadership in the formulation of strategic plans, policies, priorities, and conservation objectives and deliverables in the service of long- and short-term museum goals.
• Conducting advanced technical studies that increases the body of knowledge, makes authoritative and original contributions to the field, and enhances the institution's reputation.
• Performing conservation treatments following professional ethical standards including the AIC Code of Ethics, working in consultation with curatorial staff.
• Serving as an expert in advancing the field through the development of international partnerships and presentation of expertise at conferences, and symposia; keeping abreast of professional and popular conservation literature and maintaining a strong network of colleagues.
• Developing and overseeing conservation policies, procedures, and guidelines for aspects of preventative conversation, integrated pest management, environmental monitoring, handling, exhibition, transportation, emergency management, and storage of works of art and cultural heritage in various environments.
• Develops fundraising strategies and grant proposals collaboration with the advancement office; engages with donors to support the museum’s mission.
• Oversees outreach programs and contributes to museum programming.

Qualifications
Required:
• Master’s degree in Conservation or Graduate of a formal advanced-level conservation training program.
• Eight or more years of conservation experience, with demonstrated expertise and knowledge of conservation principles, procedure, materials, techniques, analysis, and ethics.
• Demonstrated skill in leading, supervising, and managing a multi-disciplinary and culturally diverse team, including goal setting, planning, implementing programs, establishing metrics and reporting protocols, budgeting, and resource management.
• Demonstrated research skills and engagement with trends in the field.
• Ability to travel, representing the Museum at conferences and operationally important meetings.