Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Carla Easter

Broh-Kahn Weil Director of Education

Dr. Carla Easter is the museum’s first Broh-Kahn Weil Director of Education, the leader of our Department of Education, Outreach and Visitor Experience. She leads the teams responsible for developing and deploying the museum’s digital and onsite educational and community programming, welcoming and engaging our visitors, and the operations of the live Insect Zoo, Butterfly Pavilion, and Q?rius, the Coralyn W. Whitney Science Education Center.

Carla has been a community advocate with more than 15 years of experience establishing and maintaining partnerships with local and national organizations and leading initiatives that promote the engagement of diverse communities in understanding science and its translation to health and society.

Prior to joining the museum, Carla served as chief of the Education and Community Involvement Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health. She previously also served as director of outreach for Washington University School of Medicine’s Genome Sequencing Center and as a research instructor in genetics and research associate in the department of Education where she explored the notions of science among secondary students.

Carla earned her bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of California, Los Angeles, her doctorate in biology with an emphasis on molecular genetics from the University of California, San Diego, and conducted post-doctoral research at Washington University School of Medicine in the department of Molecular Microbiology.