ANTHEA M. HARTIG, PH.D. is the Elizabeth MacMillan Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. She began her tenure in 2019 as the first woman to hold the position since the museum’s opening in 1964. Hartig oversees more than 230 employees, a budget of over $54.5 million, and a collection that includes 1.8 million objects and more than three shelf-miles of archives. Hartig is currently leading a vibrant new strategic plan to take the museum through the 250th of the United States in 2026 and beyond. It challenges the museum to be the most accessible, inclusive, relevant, and sustainable public history institution. An award-winning public historian and cultural heritage expert, Hartig is the president of the Organization of American Historians. Most recently, she opened the museum’s Culture Wing with the first ever long-term bilingual exhibition dedicated to America’s popular cultural history, “Entertainment Nation”/“Nacion del espectaculo.” A third-generation native of Southern California, Hartig was previously executive director and CEO of the California Historical Society.