Jun

Lori Yarrish will lead Anacostia through transition

Lori Yarrish

Lori D. Yarrish, Deputy Director of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, will serve as Acting Director of the Anacostia Community Museum beginning June 26. She will lead the museum through the transition following the retirement of Director Camille Akeju on June 24.

Yarrish has served as Deputy Director of SITES since 1991, overseeing its administration and operations, with responsibility for budget, financial and human resources management, facilities management and safety, and information technology. She also worked as an educator for SITES, planning and coordinating educational workshops for two major traveling exhibitions and creating partnerships with 40 museum communities nationwide. She authored resource guides for the exhibitions The Real McCoy: African American Invention and Innovation, 1619–1930 and Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: The Rise of Black Churches in Eastern American Cities, 1740–1877.

Before coming to the Smithsonian, Yarrish was State Administrator of Collections and Exhibitions for the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture and the Banneker-Douglass Museum where she conceived and created exhibitions and managed them from planning through installation. She also conducted statewide collections care and preservation workshops on a quarterly basis each year.

During her career, Yarrish has worked for and interned with several museums, including the National Building Museum, Capital Children’s Museum and the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum. She currently serves on the Board of Directors at the New School of Dance & Arts in Washington, D.C., and is a former board member of the Prince George’s County Arts and Humanities Council, the Congressional Awards Committee, D.C.’s Center for Youth Services, the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

Yarrish holds a bachelor’s degree in interior design from Howard University and a master’s degree in decorative arts from Parsons School of Design in New York.