Caroline Fernald

Caroline Jean Fernald serves as the Executive Director of Harvard Museums of Science and Culture (HMSC). In this position, she oversees a partnership of six research museums that engage public audiences with the collections and research at Harvard through interdisciplinary exhibits and educational programs. The partnership includes the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the public face of three research institutions: Harvard University’s Herbaria, Mineralogical and Geological Museum, and Museum of Comparative Zoology. 

Prior to joining Harvard, Fernald led the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley as Executive Director from 2019-2023. While finalizing her PhD dissertation on the convergence of art, anthropology, and railway tourism in the 19^th century American Southwest, she led the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, New Mexico as Executive Director from 2016-2019.

Fernald graduated with a PhD in Art History from the University of Oklahoma where she also completed her Master’s degree. In addition to frequent guest lectures and gallery talks, Fernald has presented her research most recently at the Native American Art Studies Association Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia and the Brigham Young University Museum of Art, and was awarded a research fellowship from the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College. She supports the museum field through service as a peer reviewer for the American Alliance of Museums, participation in regional museum associations, and by volunteering as a member of the E. Irving Couse and Joseph Henry Sharp Historic Site National Advisory Council.