Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to share that Dr. Angela Person will be joining our campus community as the Office of Research and Partnerships (ORP) lead for Museums and Community Engagement, with a faculty appointment in the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, starting July 1. In this role, she will directly oversee the ORP museums and also serve as a key partner in shaping a more connected, visible, and impactful ecosystem for museums and public-facing spaces across the entire university.

Dr. Person is a cultural geographer and architectural scholar whose work focuses on the intersections of design, community identities, cultural heritage, and sustainability, with a strong track record of collaboration with museums and cultural institutions. She brings deep experience in public engagement, exhibition curation, and interdisciplinary partnerships that bridge academic research and community audiences. Her expertise will be essential as we develop a campus-wide engagement strategy for our museums, visitor experiences, and cultural assets.

Within ORP, Dr. Person will work closely with Dr. Elizabeth Boyd and the Centers and Institutes portfolio to enhance public engagement across our research centers, museums, and community-serving venues. Together, they will support new and existing efforts to coordinate programming, strengthen shared infrastructure, and elevate the collective impact of our public experiences on and beyond campus, in alignment with our broader strategic imperatives.

If you would like to connect your teams that support and lead museums and cultural assets with Dr. Person, please reach out directly to me and Sherlyn Kramer to discuss how this exciting role can intersect with the units you lead and the cultural assets you steward. I encourage you to think about where enhanced coordination, shared strategies, and new partnerships around public engagement with our museums and cultural assets could advance your mission and the university’s.

Thank you for all that you do to advance our public mission; I am confident that Dr. Person’s leadership will be an important asset in supporting and connecting this work across the university.

Sincerely,

Tomás Díaz de la Rubia

Senior Vice President, Office of Research and Partnerships