Christina Conn
Senior Collections Manager | Meticulous Manager of Things
“I enjoy capturing, cultivating, and connecting stories behind historical objects to the stories of today—making the past accessible, interesting and relevant.”
Work at HAI
At HAI, Christina is a collections manager, database guru, multimedia acquirer, project manager, and an occasional litigation researcher. She relishes a good challenge and regularly takes on projects that are not routine, such as collections assessments, moves to new facilities, and upgrades to new collection management systems. Christina helps clients expertly plan for and navigate these projects, integrate with other outside vendors, and anticipate future issues, resulting in collections in a better state than when the project began.
Christina has a passion for the past and for preservation. She specializes in material culture and wrote her thesis on suburbanization. At HAI, her work includes collections assessments, collections inventory and cataloging, object photography, archives program development, planning relocations and rehousing projects, database (CMS and DAMS) assessments, data mapping and migration, in-depth historical research, multimedia research and acquisition, writing FOIA requests, and project management.
Her clients include:
- Bradley Corporation
- Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum
- Dolby
- Farm Credit System
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- Lee Family Trust
- Logitech
- Museum of Ventura County
- National Museum of Health and Medicine
- National Women’s History Museum
- Navy Nurse Corps Association
- Niagara Falls Public Library
- ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
- Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- U.S. Coast Guard
- U.S. Mint
- U.S. National Park Service
- Various United States Congressional Members
Path to HAI
Before joining HAI in 2011, Christina completed a comprehensive inventory of the City of Kenai collections at the Kenai Visitors Cultural Center on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. She also worked in various collections management and education roles at historical societies and museums such as the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Moravian Museum, Meredith Historical Society, and the Soldotna Historical Society and Museum. She served two years as an AmeriCorps volunteer, acting as an outreach program coordinator for the Boston Earned Income Tax Credit Coalition as well as team member for the National Civilian Community Corp performing team-based community service and disaster relief activities.
Christina earned her master’s degree in history museum studies at Cooperstown Graduate Program, completing coursework in museum education, exhibition planning, material culture and collections management. During her studies, she worked on a team to research, write, design, and install an exhibit about the investigative process of restoring a historical house—“Examining the Evidence: 40 years of Restoration at Hyde Hall.” She also holds a BA in anthropology with minors in French and business from Indiana University, Bloomington. Go Hoosiers!!