Keynote speaker, Dr. Briann G. Greenfield, the new Executive Director of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

Dr. Greenfield was Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University and founding director of the school’s nationally-respected program for careers in museums and historic preservation. She was a longtime board member and consultant for Connecticut Humanities, focusing on grant making. A scholar and lover of American decorative arts, she consulted on acquisitions and collecting strategies for the Connecticut Historical Society.

Greenfield received her Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University and a M.A. in Museum Studies, also from Brown. She is an accomplished cultural historian who has worked for several museums and historical societies and has held fellowships with the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Winterthur Museum. She is the author of Out of the Attic: Inventing Antiques in Twentieth-Century New England and A Life of the Land: Connecticut’s Jewish Farmers which she co-authored with Mary M. Donohue for the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford.