CURATOR

Overview

This recruitment is for a Museum Curator 3 position in the Division of Museums and History within the Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs at the Nevada State Museum (NSM), Carson City. The Nevada State Museum is a public institution dedicated to preserving and sharing the natural and human history of Nevada. Serving as both a research institution and a visitor-centered museum, NSM offers exhibitions, public programs, and educational opportunities ranging from K–16 learning to graduate-level research.

The museum is deeply committed to community engagement through mission-driven programming, tours, and public scholarship. The Curator III of History provides leadership and strategic direction for the museum’s History Department. This role oversees the stewardship, preservation, and accessibility of the museum’s historical collections, which span from the pioneer era to contemporary Nevada history. The Curator supervises professional staff, including the Curator of Textiles and, in time, a Collections Manager, and is responsible for history collections housed across three facilities.

The position works closely with the Museum Registrar and reports directly to the NSM Director. This role blends strategic leadership with hands-on museum work. The Curator is responsible for planning, policy development, budget oversight, and fundraising, while also ensuring proper cataloging, preservation, and management of collections and databases. The position supports research access, responds to public and scholarly inquiries, contributes to exhibitions and educational programming, and collaborates with education and exhibits staff to advance the museum’s public mission.

The Curator also participates in outreach efforts and helps produce public-facing historical content that reflects and promotes Nevada’s rich heritage.

Curators perform a broad range of professional and technical museum work involving, but not limited to, assessment, evaluation, survey, inventory, preservation, research, education and planning for a specific collection and/or program area within a museum. Incumbents apply a variety of professional and advanced technical knowledge, skills, methods and practices in performing duties of a specialized nature.

Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university with major coursework in history, prehistory, natural history, museum studies, education, or closely related field plus three years of professional experience in a museum. This experience must have included direct responsibility for museum collections involving the preparation of exhibit text regarding complex technical information, and/or developing, promoting, executing and evaluating educational programming; OR one year of experience as a Curator II in Nevada State service;

OR an equivalent combination of education and experience as described above.

• Implement collection management policy and procedures; assess and recommend acquisition of objects, archival materials, manuscripts, photographs for museum collections; conduct accessioning, cataloging, and inventory; maintain and secure collection records and databases; conduct research on collections for documentation and use in education programs, exhibits, and publications; conduct registration, documentation, access, use, and security.
• Coordinate use of the following: collections in exhibits, educational programs, and publications; incoming and outgoing collection loans; reproduction of collections and use of intellectual property; storage and conservation of collections; personal, nonprofit, and commercial use of collections by outside entities; and statewide authorization program.
• Coordinate and curate collections controlled by federal agencies and other entities as stipulated in agreements; respond to research inquiries related to collections and program areas; assist management of collection security.
• Conduct research and develop content and media for programs; manage tours for adults, children, and school groups; partner with schools and coordinate programs to school curricula; develop teacher guides, training manuals, and schedules;…