Dave Jordan
Exhibit Fabricator

Dave Jordan grew up in Southern Indiana, taking apart things and trying to fix them to learn how they worked. Following high school, Dave entered the U.S. Army. After spending three years at Fort Carson, Colorado, Dave went to Indiana University. He started as a journalism major who wanted to write for newspapers. After learning newspapers were dying, he majored in anthropology and folklore. Dave’s passion for museums began when he took a museum practicum class during his final semester at IU. He and a Ph.D. student built a 3000 square foot “Forest Farmers of the Amazon Estuary,” a fishing village exhibit at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures.

After graduation, Dave became the Exhibit Fabricator at WonderLab in Bloomington, Indiana. He continued his work at the Indiana Historical Society, where he designed and fabricated a Civil War traveling exhibit inside three train cars that toured all 92 Indiana counties. Dave also worked as an Exhibits Fabricator at the Indiana State Museum before moving to the Sciencenter in Ithaca, New York. Dave started as their Exhibit Developer and later became the Exhibits Director. He designed, developed, fabricated, programmed, and coded both in-house exhibits and large-scale traveling exhibits that have traversed the world. He has collaborated with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), and NISE (National Institute for STEM Education). He also taught exhibit development at Cornell University’s B.A.B.Y. Lab (Behavioral Analysis of Beginning Years Laboratory) for three semesters.

Next, the Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum sought Dave to become their Exhibits Director. He began a program there to provide city residents and families with fresh, affordable, and locally produced food. He led MHCM to become the first children’s museum in the country to open and operate a public farmers market, the Poughkeepsie Waterfront Market, as a strategy for fighting urban food insecurity. In 2019, his work was recognized with a Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award for Business Practice from ASTC (Association of Science and Technology Centers). Dave joined MOR in August 2021 as our Exhibit Fabricator, and he is excited to be involved in changes to exhibits at the museum.

Contact Dave via email or 406.994.2108.