About me

I am passionate about the natural world, human rights, and the huge potential of museums and similar institutions to support inclusive sustainable development

I have worked with natural history collections since I was 12, studied Zoology (Animal Ecology) at university, and worked as a bird ecologist before entering museums. 

With massive social and environmental challenges facing people, communities and nature, we need all hands to the pump to get on a track to a sustainable future.

Museums can play many roles in this work, and I set up Curating Tomorrow in 2019 to support them to do so. No one person or institution has all of the answers, but everyone has some of them. By understanding the challenges and what we can do about them, making plans, doing the work, and monitoring and communicating our action, museums and similar institutions can play a part in creating better futures. 

“the future doesn’t happen by accident”

My work is about helping people, organisations and networks to take part in inclusive sustainable development, using museums as capacity builders and multipurpose resources for people, experts, communities and authorities.

Most of my work involves developing and delivering through training programmes, speaking at conferences, taking part in projects, writing reports and providing advice to those in need of it.

By building awareness, connections and confidence, we can all work together for a world that works for people and nature.

Curating Tomorrow: what’s the idea?

Curating Tomorrow has three principles.

Firstly, the future doesn’t happen by accident, we make it, or at least we can make it.

Second, the museum skill of curating, with attention, selection and commitment to public service, can play an important role in a fast and noisy world.

Third, museums, collections, and those who work with them can play a range of roles to support sustainable development.

Curating Tomorrow can mean focused action by people and communities, as well as by museums and curators themselves.

The Curating Tomorrow logo draws on the idea that people and nature shape one another: the leaf and the face are connected.