Associate Director for Collections & Exhibitions
The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum, education, and research complex, with 21 museums and the National Zoo. This position is located in the Collections & Exhibitions Department, National Portrait Gallery (NPG) at the Smithsonian Institution (SI).
Major duties
The Associate Director for Collections and Exhibitions provides strategic leadership and oversight of professional and technical teams responsible for registration, art handling, exhibition design and production, museum lighting and technology, and exhibition planning and touring. In this position, you will: Collaborate with the Director and senior leadership to establish strategic priorities for collection care and exhibition development. Manage the short- and long-term planning of NPG's exhibition program, including multi-year schedules, collection rotations, touring exhibitions, and loan agreements. Provide leadership to subordinate supervisors, overseeing resource allocation, timelines, and exhibition activities to ensure projects remain on schedule and within budget. Work closely with curators, educators, designers, and other stakeholders to ensure exhibitions meet interpretive, aesthetic, and accessibility objectives.
Qualifications
Experience: You qualify for this position if you have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-13 level in the Federal Service. For this position, specialized experience is defined as supervising multidisciplinary staff and serving as a senior advisor for collection care, exhibition planning, and exhibition development. Your resume must be no more than two (2) pages and should clearly demonstrate how your experience aligns with the responsibilities and specialized experience required for this position. Do not copy language directly from the vacancy announcement, as you will be deemed ineligible for consideration. Instead, provide detailed, descriptive information about your actual experience. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Part-time and/or unpaid experience related to this position will be considered to determine the total number of years and months of experience. Be sure to note the number of paid or unpaid hours worked each week. In an effort to streamline our hiring process, SI employees whose current position of record is in the same job series (1001) and who are in a Federal competitive or excepted service appointment as this advertised position, are not required to submit a transcript with your application package. However, if selected, you will be required to provide a copy of your transcript before your start date in the position. Time-in-Grade Requirements: Under competitive merit promotion procedures, any individual who is currently holding, or who has held within the previous 52 weeks, a General Schedule position under a non-temporary appointment in the competitive or excepted service, must meet "time-in-grade" requirements (have served 52 weeks at the next lower grade of the grade for which you are applying).
Requirements
Conditions of Employment Qualification requirements, including one year time-in-grade at the next lower grade level for promotion candidates, must be met within 30 days of the job announcement closing date. See the 'Required Documents' section for additional information. For information on qualification requirements, see Qualification Standards Handbook for General Schedule Positions viewable on OPM Website.