Julian Siggers named new Penn Museum director

In the midst of its 125th anniversary, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology will soon be welcoming new leadership on board.

The University announced Thursday that Julian Siggers has been appointed director of the Penn Museum, effective July 1.

Siggers is currently the vice president for programs, education and content communication at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, which is Canada’s largest research museum.

“As we celebrate the Penn Museum’s 125th anniversary, Julian Siggers is the perfect director to lead the nation’s finest university archeological museum,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said in a statement. “Julian is deeply committed to the museum’s essential missions of research, teaching and public outreach and engagement. In addition, he has extensive experience with museum stewardship and growth.”

Prior to serving in his current position at the Royal Ontario Museum, Siggers spent time in positions like head of narrative and broadcast development at the National Museum of Science and Industry in London, as well as an instructor of prehistoric archaeology for nine years at the University of Toronto.

In June 2011, current Penn Museum Director Richard Hodges announced his plans to step down from his position at the University for an academic presidency in Italy.

Hodges’s announcement came just a few months after the museum’s Secrets of the Silk Road exhibit was nearly canceled after Chinese officials demanded that the Penn Museum not show artifacts on loan from China. The exhibit ultimately ran as planned.

Hodges told The Daily Pennsylvanian in June that the Silk Road affair had nothing to do with his decision to move on from Penn.

“It’s been a wonderful time,” he said of the position he has held since October 2007. “It’s a great museum that’s set on the right direction. It seems like an appropriate time to step down.”

“As we welcome Julian,” Provost Vincent Price said in a statement, “we also express our gratitude to Richard Hodges for his dynamic leadership of the museum over the past five years, and we wish him well in his new position as president of the American University of Rome.”

Looking ahead, Price added that Siggers will be particularly adept at targeting both traditional and non-traditional audiences through the museum’s work.

“Julian Siggers is one of the world’s leading figures in enhancing the vitality of museums and charting the future of museum practice,” Price said. “I am confident that he will be a galvanizing force for advancing the Penn Museum across our campus, our city and state and beyond.”

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