Lisa Sasaki (born 1975) is an American museum director and curator. She is the director of the

Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) is a migratory museum that shares Asian Pacific American history, art, and culture through innovative museum experiences online and throughout the U.S through the Smithsonian Institution's work. ...

. Prior to being appointed in November 2016, Sasaki was director of the Audience and Civic Engagement Center at the

Oakland Museum of California The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cal ...

and director of program development at the

Japanese American National Museum The is located in Los Angeles, California, and dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. Founded in 1992, it is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown. The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affil ...

. From 2001 to 2003, she was a museum curator at the Southeastern Colorado Heritage Center in

Pueblo, Colorado Pueblo () is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 111,876 at the 2020 United States Census, making Pueblo the ninth most populo ...

, and assistant collections manager at the

Denver Museum of Nature and Science The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help mus ...

Early life and education

Sasaki was born in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

in approximately 1975. She earned her

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in history and archaeology from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. Sasaki earned her

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in anthropology from the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univ ...

Career

Sasaki started as an

assistant manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

at the

, then worked as a

museum curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

at the Southeastern Colorado Heritage Center from 2001 to 2003. From 2003 to 2012, she worked as the director of program development at the

(JANM) in Los Angeles. Sasaki indicated that her experience in JANM "makes her appreciate the importance of a physical museum". From 2012 to November 2016, Sasaki worked as the director at the

's Audience and Civic Engagement Center. She was in charge of the museum's marketing and audience development initiative that led to the doubling of the museum visitation. She also explored the importance of audience engagement and the community needs that museums provide, through projects such as the Neighborhood Identity Report, Pacific Worlds Task Force, and Altered State Prototyping. On November 14, 2016, Sasaki was appointed director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. Sasaki told

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

that she felt, "it's a bit like winning the Super Bowl and getting an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

. To watch the work of revious directors

Franklin Odo Franklin S. Odo (May 6, 1939 – September 28, 2022) was a Japanese American author, scholar, activist, and historian. Odo served as the director of the Asian Pacific American Program at the Smithsonian Institution from the program's inception ...

and

Konrad Ng The family of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, is a prominent American family active in law, education, activism and politics. Obama's immediate family circle was the first family of the United States from 2009 to 2017, a ...

, and to be part of that legacy, is awe inspiring to me." In addition to being a guest lecturer for graduate museum studies at John F. Kennedy University, she also currently serves as both the board president of the Western Museums Association and the advisory council for the Council of Jewish American Museums.

References

External links

Lisa Sasaki profile
at the Smithsonian Institution
How our community changed our museum
presentation at the University of Queensland Art Museum, 2016 {{DEFAULTSORT:Sasaki, Lisa 1975 births Living people Directors of museums in the United States Women museum directors Cornell University alumni University of Denver alumni People from Denver American people of Japanese descent