Jen Thum

Jen Thum is associate director of Academic Engagement and Campus Partnerships and Research Curator at the Harvard Art Museums. In this role she creates interdisciplinary learning experiences with art and artifacts for students across the university; gives object-based teaching workshops for faculty; directs the museums’ Graduate Student Teacher Program; teaches a medical humanities program for radiology residents at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School; researches and teaches with the museums’ ancient Egyptian collection; and works on various curatorial projects.

Thum is trained as an archaeologist and a specialist in ancient Egyptian art. She earned her Ph.D. in archaeology and the Ancient World from Brown University, her M.Phil. in Egyptology from the University of Oxford, and her B.A in anthropology from Barnard College. She has authored numerous publications on teaching and learning with museum objects and is the lead editor of Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums: Pedagogies in Practice (Routledge 2024). Before coming to Harvard in 2018, she was a museum educator at the RISD Museum and head teaching consultant for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning at Brown University. 

Thum serves as vice president for outreach and education at the Archaeological Institute of America and regularly participates in Skype a Scientist and other public education projects. She is committed to celebrating the learning potential of art and artifacts for students and the public alike.