DESIGN
Through studying, teaching and creating many design projects for more than 30 years, I have learned the art of empathy for the visitor experience. I know how to inspire diverse teams to articulate a clear vision and achieve intended impacts with awe and wonder of elegant solutions.
Principal / Exhibitions at Alusiv, Inc.
Science History Institute
Lunchtime: The History of Science on the
School Food Tray Exhibition
2024
Drawing from nearly 250 years of rare scientific instruments, posters, pamphlets, photographs, and period editions of books popularizing new ideas about a proper diet, Lunchtime delves into the history of food science and the difficulty of feeding schoolchildren nationwide. Alusiv designed the 1,600 sq-ft exhibit in collaboration with the museum. Our work encompassed exhibit branding, space and case plans, exhibit graphic design, and marketing materials.
Principal / Exhibitions at Alusiv, Inc.
Princeton University Library
Ulises Carrión: Bookworks and Beyond Exhibition
2024
“Ulises Carrión: Bookworks and Beyond” is an immersive 2,000-sq ft experience of Carrión’s philosophy of book making, and the collaborative nature of his “time-space sequence” approach through the display of his book and mail art. Born in San Andres Tuxtla, Mexico, in 1941, Carrión began his career as a writer, studied literature in Europe, and settled in Amsterdam in 1972. He founded the bookstore-gallery Other Books & So, a central hub for the exhibition and promotion of artistic experimentation.
Principal / Exhibitions at Alusiv, Inc.
Princeton University Library
Toni Morrison: Sites of Memory Exhibition
2023
“Toni Morrison: Sites of Memory” is 2,000-sq ft exhibition that brings together select objects from the Toni Morrison Papers archived at Princeton University Library, illuminates how her creative process was a deeply archival one, and spotlights this archive as a site that records unknown aspects of her writing life and practice.
Morrison is a world-renowned writer of Beloved, her most famous novel and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She is a touchstone in African American and American literary history.
Principal / Exhibitions at Alusiv, Inc.
Princeton University Library
Records of Resistance Exhibition
2022
“Records of Resistance” is an impactful visual and historical view into four different events of protest and activism from the civil rights march in Selma, Alabama in 1965, to Jewish spiritual resistance to their oppressors during and immediately after the Holocaust, to the women's march in streets of Lahore, Pakistan in 2020 and human rights protests in Santiago, Chile in 2019 and 2020. This 2,000-sq ft exhibit presents a visually immersive dynamic. “Hear my voice” and “Look me in the eye” were essential goals for the design of this exhibit, placing visitors (as much as possible) into the dynamics of these activist events.
Principal / Exhibitions at Alusiv, Inc.
Science History Institute
Downstream Exhibition
2021
Opened in Sept 2021, “Downstream” explores more than 200 years of water analysis and water protection using objects such wooden pipes, scientific instruments, insects and a 16-foot 1964 model of the Delaware River basin to capture efforts to understand water and reveal the historical relationships between knowledge, activism, and action.
Alusiv designed the 1,600 sq-ft exhibit in collaboration with the museum. Our work encompassed exhibit branding, space and case plans, exhibit graphic design, and marketing materials.
Chief Engagement Officer at
Please Touch Museum
Centennial Innovations: Digital Learning Interactives
2019
Oversaw and supported the management of a year-long prototyping and evaluation process with PTM team, an external designer and evaluation team. Was also responsible for fundraising, reporting to funders and documenting the visitor research for this digital learning initiative. Oversaw and ensured PTM had the broadest group of stakeholders for these initiatives, worked with the PTM board, potential funders, visitors and neighborhood advisory committee from the Parkside community. With full awareness of parents potential negative reaction to “screens” in children’s museums, the two digital engagements were carefully planned, informed by a year-long literature/case study research project conducted by Randi Korn & Associates.
The first digital interactive (slide 1) allows visitors to “flythrough” the 1910 historic model of the 1876 Fairgrounds’ buildings. Through this virtual journey visitors see the names and photographs of the immense interior spaces as one would have almost 150 years ago. They become aware of the awesome scale of the fair and that the giant building they are standing in – Memorial Hall – was actually one of the smaller buildings!
The second digital experience is a touch table (slide 2). It invites visitors to build different civic structures on the site of the fair grounds today – swimming pools, public gardens, housing, recycling centers, etc. Visitors see the results of their actions through three impacts: budgetary, environmental, and community happiness. They can add and remove structures to find the perfect balance for their community’s needs. Prototyping revealed the family audiences with young children began to grasp basis of civic decision making while they had great fun building and playing together!
Chief Engagement Officer at
Please Touch Museum
Cents and Sensibility Exhibition
2018
As Chief Engagement Officer, oversaw and managed the departments, staff and contractors in the creation of this small yet critically important exhibition on financial literacy for diverse families. The exhibition and related programs were developed with the educational resources created by PNC Bank as part of their Grow Up Great series. This exhibition explores the important basics of being financially sound starting with money recognition, building a budget, wants vs. needs and choices in spending, sharing, or saving. The exhibit and programs helps our youngest patrons and their families with words and ways to discuss financial matters and how to be informed decisions through play and fun activities.
Principal / Exhibitions at Alusiv, Inc.
Penn Museum
Beneath The Surface: Life, Death & Gold In Ancient Panama Exhibition
2015
“Beneath the Surface: Life, Death, & Gold in Ancient Panama” reveals a story of the Coclé people who lived in the Sitio Conte area of Panama over 1,000 years ago, establishing hierarchical societies and trading by land and sea with other groups in their region. After a flood in the late 1920s, objects from a cemetery at Sitio Conte were found on the surface of the riverbank. The icon experience of the exhibit is the ten-by-ten foot “Burial 11” case designed as a three-dimensional “diagram” of this grave which contained 23 individual skeletons buried in three layers. Alusiv designed the exhibition and Art Guild engineered and fabricated the icon and introductory experiences. The exhibit also traveled to The Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Canada in 2016.
Director of Exhibits at
The Franklin Institute
Kid Science: The Island of the Elements
A 6,000 square-foot exhibit experience illustrating the powers of earth, air, light, and water to children ages 5-8. Four characters (“Keepers”) were developed to personify each element and were central to the mystery-adventure backstory anchoring the exhibit concept. Captured and held by evil Lord Chaos, the four Keepers have left behind clues in the intricate, immersive environments that defined their powers, including a lighthouse, a ship, a cave and a working water wheel.
The open exhibit narrative allowed families a free-flowing exploratory journey to find the Keepers and discover the secret properties of their powers. The exhibit incorporated a number of hands-on interactives demonstrating scientific principles of magnetism, air currents, air pressure, light refraction, and a water zone featuring changeable piping allowing visitors to affect currents and flow. The exhibit opened in 2001 and closed in 2017.
Project Manager / Senior Designer at CLR Design
Philadelphia Zoo
Primate Reserve
As part of a broad architectural re-design, Ms. McKenna-Cress worked closely with the Philadelphia Zoo and keepers to develop new “behavioral enrichment” opportunities for the primates. Studied the behaviors of the great apes (orangutans and gorillas) as well as the lesser apes (gibbons), monkeys, and lemurs to devise “interactives” to enhance dayroom experiences. Shifted focus from primary funding being allocated to expensive immersive environments to creating more industrial elements that aligned with “abandoned logging camp” theme of the entire complex.
Key role on the interpretive team was responsibility for developing and designing interpretive graphics, videos, media and integration into the environment. Also, worked very closely with the client to develop the interpretation which discussed the innovative nature of this new state-of-the-art building, both day and night rooms, and why the environment was not as naturalistic as many visitors had come to expect. Sharing the understanding that there needs to be a balance between visitor and animal needs.
Project Manager / Senior Designer at CLR Design
Los Angeles Zoo
Red Apes of the Rainforest Exhibition
Chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains Exhibition
The redesign of these exhibits were two of a three part series for LA Zoo’s Great Ape Forest. Red Apes of the Rainforest recreates the Indonesian treetop home of the orangutan. Entering the spirit house plaza, visitors are welcomed into a different world with a Malay language message. A Thai style covered bridge provides a gateway into the treetop home of the arboreal red ape. The exhibit wraps around the visitor and transports them to a dramatically different environment.
Chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains more than doubled the habitat of the 13 primate troop and highlighted researchers such as Jane Goodall to create a better understanding of our closest primate relatives and the need to conserve them in the wild. This exhibit also designed in many behavioral enrichment (interactives) for chimps and humans.
Senior Designer at MFM, Inc.
Peale Museum
Mermaids, Mummies & Mastodons Exhibition
Mermaids, Mummies & Mastodons was a 2,530 sq ft exhibit recreating one of America’s first museums with much of the original collection including P.T. Barnum’s Feejee Mermaid, Ramses Mummy, and a mastodon skeleton exhumed by Charles Wilson Peale. Responsibilities included development and design of timeline, design of all exhibit graphics, case detailing and layout, color and finish selections, supervision of exhibit production and on-site installation.
Senior Designer at MFM, Inc.
Smithsonian National Postal Museum
The National Postal Museum is a Smithsonian Institution located next to Union Station in Washington, DC. This 22,000 sq-ft museum deals with the history and technology of the Postal Service, and its impact on the development of the United States.