Kate Collen

Kate Collen is a museum consultant with 24 years of professional museum experience. She specializes in museum collection management systems, collections digitization, digitization grant writing, and museum cataloging standards and best practices. She recently completed a digitization project for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and consulted for the Balboa Park Online Collaborative.

Ms. Collen is the recipient of the 2020 Excellence in Teaching Award from Johns Hopkins University’s Museum Studies program. She teaches Collections Management, Collection Management Systems, and Cataloging Museum Collections.

Ms. Collen is the former Collections Database Administrator at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. She is Chair Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution’s Collections Information Management Committee and former Chair-Elect of the Smithsonian Institution’s Art Museums Collections Information Systems Committee.

Ms. Collen has worked in museums large and small. She was the Curator of Photographs at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Honolulu, HI, and is the former Collections Assistant for Rokeby Museum historic house in Ferrisburgh, VT. She worked in the registration departments of the Mission Houses Museum in Honolulu, HI, and at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University Museum, Miami Beach, FL. Ms. Collen also worked at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont.

Ms. Collen is a former research fellow in photography at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX. She completed fine art, cultural studies and anthropology work at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She received her M.A. in Museum Studies from The George Washington University and a B.A. in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Vermont.