Our next honoree has been making contributions to the Institute since 1999, when she arrived at the MIT Museum. Deborah Douglas has a dual role—Senior Director of Collections and Curator of Science and Technology. And she not only collects and curates, but also serves as a teacher, a speaker and a visible advocate for all things MIT.
Debbie led the creation of the “MIT 150 Exhibition,” working with community members to select 150 objects most important to the Institute. In 2016, she led the creation of another wonderful exhibit when MIT celebrated 100 years in Cambridge.
She contributed to the decades-long planning of the new MIT Museum – and at the same time, she was managing an enormous effort to digitize the Museum’s collections and create an online portal for open access to the amazing assets of MIT.
Colleagues have described Debbie as MIT’s “keeper of the lore” – a consummate storyteller who has helped hold the MIT community and its traditions together over generations.