Jamie Kelly

Collections Manager, African Archaeology; and the Ethnography and Archaeology of Europe; the Middle East; South, Central, and East Asia; and Mainland and Island Southeast Asia

Gantz Family Collections Center

Pronouns:He/Him/His

Jamie is the McCarter Anthropology Collections Manager

Jamie is part of a team who cares for cultural collections from Asia, Europe, and ancient Africa. Together they connect folks to these collections.

As Jamie writes, "As part of a museum collections and curation team, my role is not only to help care for the roughly 1.5 million cultural items at the museum, but it is also to connect descendant communities, researchers, educators, and the general public to these collections through community partnerships, behind-the-scenes visits and tours, community-driven programs, museum education initiatives, public events, loans, and exhibitions. This work is possible through inter-department and community collaborations."

He is currently involved with colleagues on the renovation of the Africa and Ancient Egypt exhibitions at the museum. He also serves as a co-PI on an Andrew W Mellon Foundation-funded Connecting Communities to Collections Program. Jamie has been co-PI on two Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-funded projects focused on Native North America. He has worked with community partners and staff on the digitization of a portion of the collections from the Philippines for an online curation portal. Between 2009 and 2010, he taught a U.S. State Department funded Iraqi Heritage Training course at the museum. During his time at the museum, he has led several re-organizations and moves of collections to upgraded storage areas. Between 2013 and 2024, he served as Head of the Anthropology Collections.

Education and Work

B.A. Anthropology and Art History with a minor in Museum Studies, Beloit College, 1996.
M.S. Anthropology with certification in Museum Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2002.
Before joining the Field Museum in 2006, Jamie was the museum registrar at the Wheaton Historic Preservation Council in Wheaton, Illinois. He has also served as a conservation assistant at the Milwaukee Public Museum and as a museum registrar at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Prior to his graduate studies in Milwaukee, he was a field archaeologist in Illinois and Wisconsin.