Dana Carlisle Kletchka is an Associate Professor of Art Museum Education in the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy at The Ohio State University and is the Faculty Director for the Museum Education and Administration Specialization.

Her research areas include post-critical art museum education theory; professional development for PreK–12 teachers in art museum contexts; the use of social media and digital technologies on interpretation and engagement in the art museum; and the professional positionality of art museum educators within the profound paradigmatic shift of art museums over the last 40 years. In 2015, she was awarded the National Art Education Association’s Art Educator of the Year for the Museum Education Division.

Dana’s scholarly articles are published in journals such as Journal of Museum Education, Curator: the Museum Journal, Museum Management and Curatorship, Studies in Art Education, Visual Arts Research, and Art Education, and her essays appear in books such as From Periphery to Center: Art Museum Education in the 21st Century (2007), On 21st Century Arts and Culture Education (2018), Engaging Communities through Civic Engagement in Art Museum Education (2021), The Art Museum as Interdisciplinary Space (2023), and the forthcoming Transformative Motherscholarship in Art: Public Pedagogies of Childhood.  In 2018, she co-edited, with Dr. B. Stephen Carpenter, II, Professional Development in Art Museums: Strategies of Engagement through Contemporary Art, a book on the theories, contexts, and practices of professional development for preK–12 teachers in art museums.

Her teaching experience includes undergraduate and graduate-level courses in art museum education history theory and practice; contemporary museology; arts management and social media; histories of art education and arts policy; and contemporary art and artists; in addition to facilitating professional development for PreK-12 teachers. Professional service includes serving as Associate Editor for the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education and on the review boards of Visual Culture and Gender, Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, and Visual Arts Research.

In a museum career spanning over 20 years, she held positions as Curator of Education at the Palmer Museum of Art at The Pennsylvania State University, as an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Art Education program, and as co-director of the Summer Institute on Contemporary Art (SICA), a joint project of the School of Visual Arts and the Palmer Museum of Art. She was also the Coordinator of Docent and Interpretive Programs at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, OK, and a Curatorial Intern in Art Museum Education at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.

Dana earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Art History (1995) and an M.A. in art education (1998) from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. in art education from The Pennsylvania State University in 2010.

Dana welcomes questions regarding Ohio State’s AAEP program and the Museum Education and Administration Specialization, her professional work, publications, teaching, or art museum education in general.

Photo credit: Reilika Landen, 2022