Dr. Carin Berkowitz
Executive Director, NJ Council for the Humanities
As Executive Director of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities (NJCH), Carin Berkowitz establishes the strategic direction for NJCH and serves as a passionate advocate for the humanities across New Jersey. She leads the efforts of NJCH’s Board and its talented staff to explore, cultivate, and champion the public humanities in communities around the state, with a focus upon diversifying New Jersey’s remarkable cultural sector.
Carin joined NJCH in 2018 after having served for eight years as the Director of Historical Research at the Science History Institute, a museum, library, and center for scholarship in Philadelphia. At the Institute, she developed a research center that responded effectively to a variety of constituencies, translating scholarly humanistic inquiry into meaningful and accessible programs in the form of public lectures, conferences, a book series, and a social media presence. She has served as an elected member of the Nominating Committee of the 11,000-member American Historical Association (AHA), the co-chair of the annual meetings of the American Association for the History of Medicine, the AHA, and the Federation of State Humanities Councils; she has also been on the elected governing Council of the History of Science Society and is a current member of the Boards of ArtPride and of the Federation of State Humanities Councils.
Carin has a B.A. in English Literature from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in the history of science from Cornell University and brings her love of interdisciplinary work to her role at NJCH. She has published extensively on the historical intersections of art, science, medicine, and pedagogy, including the monograph Charles Bell and the Anatomy of Reform and the co-edited collection Science Museums in Transition: Anglo-American Cultures of Display in the Nineteenth Century. When she is not at work, she embraces the joyful chaos of her household, with her two wonderful children and her rescue dogs, and seeks peaceful moments by hiking in wild and solitary places.
