Robert Leopold is senior program officer for history, art and culture, and director of the Consortium for World Cultures, one of the four grand challenges of the Smithsonian’s strategic plan. The Grand Challenges are the priorities that will guide the Smithsonian’s work over the next decade. The consortia directors and their committees consider proposals for innovative research, exhibitions and programs from all over the Institution and determine which ones will receive funding. Before he was named consortia director in summer 2010, Leopold was director of the National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives at the National Museum of Natural History. Leopold, an anthropologist and archivist, is also actively involved in Recovering Voices, a Smithsonian initiative that promotes the documentation and revitalization of the world’s languages and the knowledge preserved in them. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a doctorate in cultural anthropology and African studies from Indiana University.

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SI-357-2011