Deborah Schwartz is an independent consultant to museums and other cultural organizations.
From 2006 to 2020, Ms. Schwartz was president of the Brooklyn Historical Society. In 2020, Ms. Schwartz successfully led the effort to merge the Brooklyn Historical Society (now known as the Center for Brooklyn History) with the Brooklyn Public Library. From 2001 to 2006, she was the Edward John Noble Foundation deputy director for education at the Museum of Modern Art. In 2001, she curated the critically acclaimed exhibition Art Inside Out for the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. Schwartz was vice director for education and program development at the Brooklyn Museum from 1989 to 2000.
Ms. Schwartz has created and managed an array of education initiatives and exhibitions; shepherded strategic plans and mergers; and taught graduate seminars in museum studies for Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Columbia University Teachers College, and Bank Street College. Deborah serves as immediate past president of the Board of the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, president of the Board of the New York Archival Society, and vice chair of the Education Committee at Storm King Art Center.
She has authored numerous articles about community building in museums, including essays in Marsha Semmel’s Partnership Power: Essential Museum Strategies for Today’s Networked World, Change is Required: Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum, and Art Education as a Radical Act: Untold Stories of Education at MoMA. She is currently writing a history of the New York Hall of Science, scheduled for publication in 2026.