Elaine Heumann Gurian is a consultant/advisor to a number of museums and visitor centers that are beginning, building or reinventing themselves. She is the 2004 recipient of the Distinguished Service to Museums Award presented by AAM. Over the past thirty five years, Ms. Gurian has served in the following positions: Acting Director of the Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Deputy Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC; Deputy Director for Public Program Planning for the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution; Deputy Assistant Secretary for Museums at the Smithsonian, Director of the Exhibit Center, the public facility of the Boston Children's Museum and Director of Education at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts.Gurian is published and lectures widely and has held many elected positions within the museum community.