LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art announced the selection of Elizabeth Escamilla as its first Director of Education.
“We are thrilled to welcome Elizabeth during this pivotal time in our museum’s development,” said Founding President Don Bacigalupi. “She will provide leadership in the creation of robust education programs about visual storytelling for all of our audiences--from children to scholars.”
As part of the Museum’s leadership team, Escamilla will be responsible for conceiving, developing and implementing a wide range of diverse and innovative educational programs and offerings. She will oversee programs (both prior to opening the museum and after) serving audiences including K-12 students, educators, scholars, families and adults. Furthermore, she will build a staff comprised of top-flight museum educators.
Elizabeth Escamilla comes to the Lucas Museum from her post as Head of Education at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and is considered a foremost expert and leader in the field of museum education. Throughout her 22-year career at the Getty, she has been committed to utilizing art to promote child development and academic success for students, particularly in diverse communities. The hallmark of Elizabeth’s work has been a dedication to providing access to the broadest range of visitors through high quality art museum education programs. During her tenure, the Getty Museum established itself as a leader in the area of guided school visits, surpassing any other American art museum of its size, leading the Museum to welcome more than 130,000 K-12 students annually. She created successful partnerships with school districts and community-based organizations throughout Los Angeles, and launched a pioneering program to help adults learn English through visual arts. Elizabeth established several professional development training programs for local teachers on arts curriculum, and supervised several college and university programs.
In addition to supporting the development of interactive spaces for family audiences on site at the Getty Center and Getty Villa, Escamilla applied her expertise in arts integration to the online space, expanding getty.edu online resources to over 250 arts integrated and collection inspired lesson plans. In an effort to expand the Getty’s audience for its online resources, she worked to establish partnerships with Khan Academy and Teaching Channel. The latter resulted in the launching of 19 art integration videos featuring local teachers presenting teacher-authored lessons based on the Getty’s collection.
Under Elizabeth’s direction, the Getty Museum’s docent program expanded to approximately 600 docents who provide tours and engagement in education spaces to more than 500,000 visitors annually.
Elizabeth has presented locally and nationally on issues in the field of museum education as a member of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). In 2014, she was named Museum Educator of the Year by the National Art Educators Association. Most recently, Elizabeth co-curated J. Paul Getty Life and Legacy, an interactive exhibition on the founder of the Museum. The exhibition provided a dynamic digital presentation leveraging the rich archival material available through the Getty Research Institute.
