Meredith Peruzzi (born ) is an American historian and Director of the

National Deaf Life Museum The National Deaf Life Museum is a museum focusing on the culture and history of deaf and hard of hearing people in the United States. Founded in 2007 as the Gallaudet University Museum, the museum is operated by Gallaudet University and locate ...

(NDLM) in Washington D. C.

Early life and education

Peruzzi grew up in Columbia, Maryland and attended Wilde Lake High School where she was the captain of the quiz team. She has a B.A. in Deaf Studies with a minor in History from

Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first sc ...

(2011) where she was on a team which took first place in the National Association of the Deaf College Bowl in 2008. Her honors project at Gallaudet was a book called ''Gallaudet at 150: Chapter One'', covering campus history from 1857 to 1880. After college she spent a year in Tokyo teaching

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...

. She received her M.A. in history from

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

in 2018, with concentrations in U.S. History and Applied History. She is pursuing doctoral work at the University of Leicester, in the field of Museum, Gallery, and Heritage Practice. Her current doctoral research "applies Critical Disability Theory to the issue of deaf visitors developing a sense of belonging in museum spaces."

Career

Peruzzi is a public historian with research interests that lie in the area of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American Deaf history. Her first work in museums was in 1991 volunteering for the Baltimore City Life Museums. She started working at the National Deaf Life Museum, which sees approximately 8,000 visitors each year, in June 2013 and became the director in January 2014. Her museum interests lie in making museums more Deaf-friendly, particularly in the areas of music- and sound-themed exhibits. She also wants museums to alter their relationship with tech-based accessibility, engaging in dialogue with disabled people so that museums can go beyond basic ADA compliance when providing exhibits, displays and interactive opportunities. Under her leadership the museum changed its name from the Gallaudet University Museum to the National Deaf Life Museum, showcasing the history of the Deaf community as well as Gallaudet. She created and curated an exhibit at NDLM about Gallaudet history entitled ''Gallaudet at 150 and Beyond''.

External links

Personal website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peruzzi, Meredith Living people Deaf culture in the United States American women curators American curators Year of birth missing (living people) Directors of museums in the United States Gallaudet University alumni