George Boden Harris

Mr. Boden Harris is a professional museum collections manager and curator with over 20 years’ experience in museums, primarily in collections care. He has a diverse set of interests from history to natural history to environmental conservation. He currently works as the director of collections for the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. As head of the collections department he not only oversees overall care of the museum’s primarily natural history collections, including the archives and collections database, but plays a significant role in the creation of exhibits. Recently he has led the development and reinstallation of several long-term exhibits at the Fairbanks Museum and initiatives to examine collections in new ways.  This has included x-raying collections, leading to temporary and long-term exhibits.  He previously worked as the Fairbanks Museum’s registrar. He also has worked at the Maine Historical Society and as collections manager for the American Precision Museum and Billings Farm and Museum.

Mr. Harris has worked on many aspects of collections care, including helping to develop Vermont’s Museum Abandoned Property Law and was among the first to implement it. He has co-chaired workshops at both the Vermont Historical Society’s Annual Meeting and the New England Museum Association’s Annual Conference on this topic. He also works on many projects requiring the interpretation of museum ethics, primarily focused on collections care and use. Mr. Harris holds a BA in History, Society, and Culture from Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire and a MA in Museums and Collections Management from Bournemouth University in Bournemouth, England.