Harvard Museums of Science & Culture honored by the New England Museum Association

The New England Museum Association recently honored the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture across two award categories: an Excellence Award to Wendy Peiper and Publication Awards for the HMSC 2024 annual report and a book award for the Peabody Museum Gardner Fellow book “Manifest | Thirteen Colonies” by Wendel White. This year’s competition included over 80 submissions from 30 museums across 10 categories.

Each year, NEMA awards the Excellence distinction to museum professionals who demonstrate a sustained commitment to going above and beyond and who show effort, ingenuity, and innovation for a particular time-limited project or program. As retail supervisor at the Shop at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Peiper received an Excellence Award for her strategic vision for the shop’s redesign. The new design introduces a more accessible entrance and a more intuitive and inclusive guest experience. Peiper believes that a successful museum shop creates an emotional bond between visitors and the collections. She adeptly balances operational efficiency with a welcoming atmosphere, ensuring the shop is both a financial and experiential asset to the museum.

The Harvard Museums of Science & Culture won first place in the Publication Category for an organization of its size, recognizing the high-quality project management, design, and production of the 2024 annual report: Making Connections: A Year of Discovery and Impact. HMSC Executive Director Caroline Fernald, Administrative Director Elizabeth Solinga, and Director of Communications & Marketing Tim Letteney collaborated with Crackerjack Communications on the report, the first of its kind in HMSC’s history. HMSC was in good company with local museums such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Peabody Essex, Harvard Art Museums, and Boston Children’s Museum, among others.

The 2024 annual report tells the story of HMSC’s collaborative relationships with Harvard faculty, Harvard students, and research museum partners in creating high-quality exhibits and educational programming for the general public, ensuring Harvard’s world-class collections and innovative research advancements are available for all to experience and enjoy. 

HMSC welcomed more than 300,000 visitors in 2024; free visits accounted for 42 percent of all museum admissions, through access provided by programming, educational support, nonprofit partnerships, cultural discounts, free hours, and the library pass program.

“Manifest | Thirteen Colonies” (Radius Books/Peabody Museum Press, Summer 2024) secured first place in the NEMA Books category. The honor recognized White as the author; Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology staff members Mór Madden and Diana Loren; and designer and Radius Books founder David Chickey. 
White is a distinguished professor of art at Stockton University and the 2021 recipient of the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography.