Participant Info

First Name
Lisa
Last Name
Junkin Lopez
Country
United States
State
GA Georgia
Affiliation
Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace - Girl Scouts of the USA
Website URL
Keywords
museums, historic sites, public history, social justice, women's history, Progressive Era
Availability
1
Additional Contact Information
PhD
other credentials

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

Lisa Junkin Lopez is a museum leader, public historian and educator who works to re-imagine historic house museums as active spaces to engage both the past and the present.

Since 2015, Lisa has worked as Executive Director of the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, a beloved cultural resource owned by Girl Scouts of the USA. Working to align the Birthplace with Girl Scouts’ mission of girls’ empowerment, Lisa and her team have created girl-centered tours and educational programs, reimagined the site’s shop, and are undertaking a site renovation to ensure its accessibility and sustainability for generations to come.

From 2008-15, Lisa provided vision and leadership to the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, which is internationally recognized for innovative projects that address contemporary social issues. As Interim Director and Associate Director (2013-15), Lisa curated exhibitions and programs for diverse publics and worked to further the museum’s reputation as an unparalleled house museum fostering civic engagement. As Education Coordinator (2008-12), she developed tours and programs for all ages and assisted in the curation of a new permanent exhibition (2010). As Project Director for “Report to the Public: An Untold Story of the Conservative Vice Lords” (2012), Lisa worked with former gang members to co-curate an award-winning exhibition on gangs and grassroots organizing.

Lisa guest-edited a special issue on experimental practices within historic house museums while serving on the Board of Editors of The Public Historian (2015). She was a core faculty member of Museum and Exhibition Studies at UIC (2012-15), a Fellow at the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, (2011-12) and won AMM’s Promising Leadership award (2011). Lisa holds an MA in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in Art History from the College of William & Mary.

Recent Publications

Open House: Re-imagining the Historic House Museum, a special issue of The Public Historian. Lisa Junkin Lopez, ed. University of California Press, 2015. 

Junkin Lopez, Lisa; Radke, Heather. “Utopian Dreams and Housing Reform in Chicago.” In Out of the Loop: Vernacular Architecture Forum Chicago. Virginia Price, David Spatz, D. Bradford Hunt, eds. Vernacular Architecture Forum, 2015. 

“Report to the Public: An Interview with Benneth Lee and Lisa Junkin Lopez.” In Art Against the Law. Rebecca Zorach, ed. University of Chicago Press, 2014. 

“Sex in the Museum.” In Institutions and Imaginaries. Stephanie Smith, ed. University of Chicago Press, 2014. 

Junkin, Lisa; Lee, Lisa Y. “Participating in History: The Museum as a Site for Radical Empathy” in Jane Addams in the Classroom. Schaafsma, David, ed. Urbana- Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2014. 

“Alternative Labeling Project.” Creativity in Museum Practice. Linda Norris and Rainey Tisdale. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2013. 

“Welcoming Museum Takeovers” in Excavating History. Rebecca Keller, ed. Chicago: Stepsister Press. 2011. 

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Expertise by Geography
United States
Expertise by Chronology
19th century, 20th century
Expertise by Topic
Museums, Public History, Women