Porchia Moore

Porchia Moore dually earned her doctorate from the School of Library and Information Science and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Management from the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina. The recipient of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century fellowship, she is a museum visionary and activist-scholar who employs Critical Race Theory to interrogate museums and other cultural heritage spaces. Her research examines the intersections of race, community, technology and social media, and inclusion in museums. A Regular Contributing Writer and Project Advisor for the Incluseum; her writing and research is used as training and learning materials at museums across the country. She is the co-creator of The Visitors of Color project; a national counternarrative project recognized by the American Alliance of Museums as a resource on DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access), which seeks to highlight and share the lived experiences, insights, and reflections on modern museums from marginalized citizens. She has served as advisor to numerous national museum projects including MASS (Museums as Site for Social) Action with the Minneapolis Institute of Art and Museums and Race. She served as consulting curator at the Columbia Museum of Art and curated the rotating African American art gallery, “Spoken.”

Dr. Moore has served on numerous boards such as Friends of African American Art and Culture at the Columbia Museum of Art (where she served as the first ever Inclusion Catalyst), Museum Education Roundtable, Women and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina in addition to serving on a multitude of advisory and planning committees including the South Carolina Federation of Museums, Museum Computer Network and more. Dr. Moore is a sought-after lecturer and keynote speaker and regularly presents at library and museum conferences internationally including Museums and the Web, American Alliance of Museums, Museum Computer Network, Ontario Museums Conference, Smithsonian American History Museum, Southeastern Museums Conference, and more. She has worked with museums across the nation to help shape internal and external transformation and change with the Smithsonian National Gallery of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, Owens-Thomas House, Historic Columbia Foundation, The Phillips Collection, and the Orlando Science Center, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh being a small handful of the museums that she has worked with. A prolific scholar, Dr. Moore has published in journals such as Curator and Exhibitionist and has contributed significant book chapters to important museum publications such as the newly released 2019 Museum Activism edited by Dr. Richard Sandell and Positioning Your Museum as a Critical Community Asset edited by Connolly and Bollwerk. Recognized a museum thought-leader and social media influencer; Dr. Moore was invited to participate in the Pre-Opening Media Day Preview for the Smithsonian National African American History Museum in Washington, D.C. She has appeared as a featured guest on varying museum podcasts including Museum Life with Carol Bossert, The Whitest Cube, Archipelago, and others. You can follow her on Twitter @PorchiaMuseM.