Lecturer profiles

Below you can find the profiles of a selection of our lecturers.

After her training in Library and Documentation Gerdie studied Cultural Anthropology (M.A.) at Nijmegen University. Since 2001 she is a senior lecturer in Information Management at Reinwardt Academy. Before that, Gerdie was the Museum Advisor on Documentation and ICT for the Ministry of Culture of Flanders (Belgium) and head of the Central Documentation Department of the Netherlands Open Air Museum in Arnhem and also worked in various libraries. Gerdie is a former member of the Board of the Information Management Section of the Dutch Museum Association (SIMIN), of the translation project for the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT) and the Flemish partner of the European Museums’ Information Institute (EMII). Now she is a Member of ICOM-CIDOC.

Gerdie Borghuis is passionate about information management: websites, e-culture, archiving, registration systems, knowledge management - basically everything to do with the ordering and use of information.

Peter is Professor of Museology at Newcastle University, and from 2005 to 2009 I was Guest Professor of Museology at Museion, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

He was responsible for creating the Museum Studies programme at Newcastle University in 1992 and the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies in 2000. Peter has taught all aspects of museology but has a particular interest in new approaches to teaching museum management. His research interests include the history of museums, the history of natural history and environmentalism, and ecomuseums.

Peter is the author of Museums and the Natural Environment (1996), Ecomuseums: a sense of place (1999), and (with Christine Jackson) Sir William Jardine: a life in natural history (2001).

Paula is a lecturer in heritage theory and sociomuseology at the Reinwardt Academy. She has also been managing director of the master’s programme since 2006. She is originally from Brazil, where she took her B.A. in museology at the University of Rio de Janeiro. She moved to the Netherlands in 2001 to study at the Reinwardt Academy. Since then she has become more involved with community museology, sociomuseology and knowledge networks. Besides working at the Reinwardt, she runs a small foundation specialized in international cooperation projects in the field of museums.

Two of our current projects are the making of an exhibition on Dutch-Brazilian Mutual Heritage and a grassroots network project between the District Six Museum in Cape Town and the Mare Museum in Rio de Janeiro. She is also vice-president of the Movement for a New Museology (MINOM), an ICOM-affiliated organization, visiting lecturer in museum studies and museology programmes in Europe and Brazil, and consultant/advisor for Dutch and Brazilian organizations on the areas of mutual heritage and (grassroots) participation. Brazil remains a very special reference in her professional life, as well as other countries in Latin America and Africa. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociomuseology at the Lusophone University in Lisbon (Portugal). In her research she intends to confront the museum field with the deepest (philosophical and social) meanings of grassroots participation and negotiations between different museum stakeholders.

Paula dos Santos epitomizes the new face of Museology – young, dynamic, international, highly qualified with an enthusiastic but profound understanding of all issues involved in the museum and heritage world, with her eye fixed firmly on new and future developments within the field.

Arjen is a Senior Researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN). Currently he is researching the phenomenon of ‘New Collecting’ (Het Nieuwe Verzamelen). By ‘New Collecting’ the museum seeks the active participation of other institutions or individuals to develop the collection or to fulfil its collection policy. They can be institutional or private collectors, other museums or members of the public. The museum creates the circumstances and offers the support for outsiders to add to the collection or to perform collection management tasks for the museum. He studied Art History at the University of Utrecht (M.A.).

Being trained as a teacher (B.A.) he studied Educational Science at the University of Groningen (M.A.). After a number of jobs as a special needs teacher and coordinator of education, he got involved in theatre productions and started to work in the museum field in 1998 where he developed educational programmes. Subsequently his focus shifted towards exhibitions as an advanced medium of learning and communication. In this phase he was involved in a number of exhibition projects. Feeling the need to improve his knowledge and skills, he studied teaching Fine Art (ARTeZ). Mario remained working there as a teacher and started to write exhibition concepts for museums. Since 2007 he has been working as a lecturer at the Reinwardt Academy.

Jorna studied Culture and Policy, with Art Education as main subject. She then started working at Kasteel Groeneveld, a mansion where exhibitions and events are organized having to do with nature, landscape and food. She worked there for 7 years as Project Manager Audience and Education and Manager of Volunteers.

Jorna organized several exhibitions, leading international project teams, for example The Flower Fairies, Peter Rabbit and multiple art exhibitions. She has always been very interested in art and the link between works of art and people within the space of a museum. Therefore she started Art History at the University of Amsterdam part time, graduating with a thesis on blockbusters in art museums in 2009. Since 2007 she has worked for the Reinwardt Academy as a Lecturer in Audience Development and Exhibitions. Her main focus within the master’s programme is project management. Since 2009 she has been Manager Bachelor and acting Director Master Programme.

Peter is professor of cultural heritage at the Reinwardt Academy. He studied zoology and archaeology at the University of Amsterdam and earned the Ph.D. degree at the University of Zagreb (Croatia) on the basis of a thesis on the theory of museology in 1992.

After having worked in the field of archaeology at the Government Agency for Field Archaeology and the University of Amsterdam, Peter decided to devote his professional career to museology. Between 1967 and 1982 he worked for several museums (history, applied art and natural history) in the Netherlands as an assistant curator, registrar, educator and exhibition coordinator. From September 1982 to February 2010 he was senior lecturer in theoretical museology and museum ethics at the Reinwardt Academy. He was also the director of the academy’s International Master Degree Programme in Museology. In 2006 Peter was appointed at the Amsterdam School of the Arts as the first professor of cultural heritage and as such he is responsible for the academy’s research programme. As a researcher he is interested in developing an integral and integrated approach to heritage.

Marjan studied Art History at Groningen University and Archaeology at Leiden University (M.A.). She did courses on marketing (NIMA-A) and the Clingendael course on Foreign Relations. At the Scheepvaartmuseum, the Tropenmuseum, the Verzetsmuseum, all in Amsterdam, she was responsible for marketing and public relations, and she started the office for co-ordinated promotion of Leiden Museum City. Marjan was a PR officer for several governmental institutions such as the Dutch Ministry of Culture, SICA (Centre for International Cultural Activities) and ICN.

As a board member she supported several cultural NGOs such as the Thamy Mnyele Foundation, an artist in residence programme for African artists; ICOM The Netherlands, Blue Shield The Netherlands and the Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield.

Martijn graduated in restoration studies at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage in Amsterdam with wood and polychrome sculptures as a specialization and fulfilled internships at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the British Museum. Since 1991 he has worked in several museums, including the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden. Martijn has been associated with the collections department of the Tropenmuseum since 2002. His primary tasks include the physical management of the collection in storage, during exhibitions and transport.  He is experienced in the initiating and executing of preventive conservation projects such as storage improvements and the treatment of object groups. These projects take place in both the Netherlands and in Surinam and Indonesia.

Martijn was a moderator in several international workshops on the execution of conservation projects and worked together with ICCROM and UNESCO. He has extensive experience in the treatment of objects and the proper use of collections during permanent exhibitions, temporary exhibitions and while on loan, he has been a lecturer in collection management at the Reinwardt Academy since 2002.

Jan studied Literary Theory (M.A.) at the University of Amsterdam and Social Psychology (M.Sc.) at Utrecht University. He is a specialist in museum audience research. Currently he is working on my Ph.D. about Repeat Museum Visitors. This thesis is supervised by Prof. Dr Volker Kirchberg, Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Germany) and Prof. Dr Folkert Haanstra, Utrecht University/ Amsterdam School of the Arts. Before he started working as a senior lecturer in Visitor Studies and Museum Communications at the Reinwardt Academy, he was head of the Department of Education at the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam. He has been treasurer of the Marketing & Public Relations Committee of ICOM for nine years.

Originally Ruben was trained as a teacher in History and Geography. He started his working career as a trainee at the Educational Department in the Tropenmuseum. From that moment on he fell in love with the concept and practical involvement of museums and their visitors. He held various (management) posts at the Tropenmuseum, Kasteel Groeneveld and the Museum voor Communicatie.

He also has been taking part in advisory groups and/ or working committees in several professional bodies such as the Netherlands Museum Association, the Mondrian Foundation and The Netherlands Institute for Heritage. As an enthusiastic practitioner in the field, he wants to deepen his insight into museology and successfully completed the M.A. in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester (UK).

In 2004 he started as a guest lecturer at the Reinwardt Academy, where he has been working as a full-time lecturer since 2006. In 2009 he started (on a small scale) his own Company ISEE where he offers coaching and advice trajectories. Currently he is involved in a programme to adapt the ‘Inspiring Learning for All’ framework to the Netherlands.

Hasti started her involvement in heritage in 1993 as a volunteer for Bandung Heritage Society and an internship with the National Trust of New South Wales, Sydney. She is the founder of Sumatra Heritage Trust and Pan-Sumatra Network for Heritage Conservation and she is also involved in the establishing of Indonesia Heritage Trust. In 2003 we received the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Award for Merit.

She studied social welfare (B.A.) and regional planning (M.A.) as well as sustainable development. She translated and edited the Australian heritage conservation guidelines Burra Charter into Indonesian and contributed to the Urban Culture Encyclopedia published by Yale University. She also translated Canon, the summary of Dutch history into Indonesian.

She is a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar based in Austria (in urban planning), a fellow of Leadership for Environment & Development (LEAD) International (in sustainable development) and also a member of the modern Asia Architecture Network (mAAN), the International Field School of Asian Heritage (IFSAH). She is involved in the Stepping Stones programme which was initiated by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture & Science to enhance professionalism in the heritage sector, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Indonesia, Friends of Amsterdam City Centre (VVAB) and The Netherlands heritage organization Heemschut. Currently she is the representative of the Indonesia Heritage Trust in the Netherlands, associate of Urban Solutions (Rotterdam, Hongkong, Vietnam), freelance translator of history books from Dutch into Indonesian and guest lecturer at the Reinwardt Academy.

After completing his studies at the Reinwardt Academy, he has worked for different heritage institutions as a project manager. Currently he is working as restoration staff co-ordinator at the Dutch museum for mechanical musical instruments. He is also a board member of the Provincial Council of Museums in Utrecht.

Since 2003 she has been the course co-ordinator of the master’s programme of the Reinwardt Academy. She likes to work with international students who all have such different backgrounds. They make her job a fascinating one. Before she started to work at Reinwardt Academy she worked at the Academy of Architecture, and as the secretary of the Central Participatory Board, both at the Amsterdam School of the Arts.