Brenda Dione Tindal

A national museum leader, curator, and public historian, Brenda Tindal, serves as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences inaugural Chief Campus Curator and Senior Advisor on Academic Community Engagement. As chief campus curator, Tindal provides creative leadership and oversight of visual culturerenewal initiatives and broader curatorial programming across the FAS campus—which spans 11 million square feet of structured space and includes a constellation of artworks, material culture, notable interiors, public art installations, exhibitions, historical signage and wayfinding, and a vast memorial ecology. In her capacity as Senior Advisor on Academic community engagement to the FAS Dean, she works closely with the FAS academic and administrative leadership to advance community relations and strategic partnerships across FAS’s academic divisions and affiliated departments and centers.

Previously, Tindal served as the executive director of the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture (HMSC), where she led the public-facing entity for the six FAS research museums, including the Harvard University Herbaria, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, the Mineralogical & Geological Museum, the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology. Reporting to the FAS Dean and working in partnership with a multi-disciplinary team of faculty museum directors, Tindal’s portfolio included oversight of HMSC’s 40+ staff member team and its core departments, including administration, multi-site operations, public programming, exhibit development and design, PR and marketing, education, and membership and donor relations.

Before joining the FAS and Harvard community, Tindal was the Founding Director of Education & Engagement and Associate Curator at the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. At the IAAM, she led the museum’s local, national, and international community engagement strategies; developed its inaugural K-12 education initiatives, public programs, and scholarly lecture series; and played a key role in the research, content development, and overarching curation of the museum’s eight permanent exhibitions.

Tindal has held numerous senior leadership roles within the arts and culture sectors, including as Director of Education at the Detroit Historical Society—which encompasses the Detroit Historical Museum and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. She also served as Senior Vice President of Research and Collection and the Chief Staff Historian at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, NC. Tindal also brings years of teaching and research experience, having held lectureships and professional appointments at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, Princeton University, Bowdoin College, and the Division of Continuing Education at Harvard University—where she teaches in the Museum Studies Program.

Tindal completed her undergraduate studies (B.A.) in History at the University of North Carolina Charlotte and graduate work (M.A. and reached PhD candidacy) in American Studies at Emory University.