Karen Kroslowitz
Registrar
650-810-1022
“I owe it all to Mom and Bernie the Bat,” says Karen of her museum career. “I’m a product of the informal learning programs at my hometown history museum, where my mother took my brother and I and where I first learned that even bizarre creatures like bats had a place in the world.” Karen’s interests in the sciences led her to Long Island University/Southampton for a B.A. in Biology. In addition, Karen holds a M.A. Museum Studies/Collections Management (John F. Kennedy University) and a Professional Certificate in Nonprofit Management (San Jose State University).
Her professional experiences have taken her from the William K. Vanderbilt Museum & Planetarium on Long Island to the Bernice Bishop P. Museum in Honolulu, where she managed a collection of mollusks (that’s shells!). She’s also enjoyed collections work at the National Steinbeck Center (Salinas, CA) and the Wing Luke Asian Museum (Seattle, WA), curated an exhibition for Shakespeare Santa Cruz, and published on dialog and discourse at spontaneous memorials for the journal Museums and Social Issues. Karen describes the job of a Museum Registrar as “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief,” due to responsibilities in the areas of preventive health care and risk management for the artifacts and the need to sustain a collaborative spirit among the many and diverse tribes of curators, researchers, volunteers and the public.
Karen has adopted the mantra that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. When not visiting other museums, Karen cooks up big dinners for friends, grumbles about major elevation gains while hiking and wishes there was more time for practicing yoga.