Elise Park Museum Director

Born and raised in the Southwest, Elise graduated Summa Cum Laude from Western Colorado University (BA: Politics and Government, minors in history and sociology), and earned a master’s degree from Rutgers University in Cultural Anthropology: Peace and Conflict Studies.  Her master’s thesis examined community-level strategies for recovering from violence and conflict through the use of memorials and memorialization. While studying at Rutgers, Elise was selected to be an anthropological researcher for the prestigious American Museum of Natural History in New York City, launching her into the world of museum management.  She served museums and nonprofits in Lake Tahoe, Jackson Hole, Crested Butte, and Vienna, Austria, before becoming the Museum Director for the Moab Museum of Film and Western Heritage in 2022.