Julia Washburn, Associate Director for Interpretation and Education at the United States National Park Service, will present the Park Service’s vision for the role of parks and technology in solving 21st century educational dilemmas.
Julia Washburn is a former park ranger, National Park Foundation senior vice president, park advocate, and entrepreneur. She manages the Volunteers-In-Parks program, Harpers Ferry Center for Media Services (publications, exhibits, audio-visual production, and historic furnishings), and NPS relationships with cooperating associations, non-profit organizations that support educational, scientific, historical, and interpretive activities. She also manages all areas of interpretation and education, which across the country swore in almost 600,000 Junior Rangers and conducted more than 57,000 curriculum-based education programs in 2009.
She is an adjunct professor at George Washington University where she teaches in the museum education graduate program. She served as key advisor to the National Parks Second Century Commission’s Education Committee. Washburn holds a bachelor’s degree in psychobiology (neuroscience) from Mount Holyoke College and a master’s degree in museum education leadership from Bank Street College of Education, New York.