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Levasseur, Jennifer

Levasseur, Jennifer

Museum Curator

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Levasseur, Jennifer

Museum Curator

My research focuses on the material culture of human spaceflight and its use in storytelling in the context of the museum. My prior work included examining the artistic, historic, technological, and public memory of astronaut-captured images and equipment as part of the history of exploration. My collections-based research includes human spaceflight cameras and astronaut personal equipment, especially chronographs. space food, and hygiene equipment. I am fortunate enough to be curator for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station program materials, which are the current source for my exhibition and research efforts.

Geographic Focus

Background And Education

Education And Training

Professional Biography

  • Jennifer Levasseur received her BA in history from the University of Michigan in 1999, an MA in American studies from The George Washington University in 2002, and PhD in history at George Mason University in 2014. Her dissertation, Pictures By Proxy: Images of Exploration and the First Decade of Astronaut Photography at NASA, looked at the cultural significance of astronaut photography. Her book, based on that dissertation, Through Astronaut Eyes: Photographing Early Human Spaceflight, was published by Purdue University Press in 2020. She serves as the responsible curator for the Museum's astronaut cameras, chronographs, Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and contemporary human spaceflight programs.

    Prior to her work at the National Air and Space Museum, she worked as a historic interpreter at George Washington's Mount Vernon, and did an internship at the National Portrait Gallery's Department of Photography. There, she cataloged photographs acquired through donation and developed strategies for recording portrait information in the museum's electronic database.

    With over 20 years at the National Air and Space Museum, Jennifer has worked on programs including artifact loans, the Museum's annual Mutual Concerns conference, and as a representative for the department on digital and other exhibition projects. Most recently, she curated the exhibit Outside the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity and currently served as exhibition curator for the Moving Beyond Earth exhibition. She is the lead curator for a new exhibition about the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Artemis programs called At Home in Space, set to open in the summer of 2026.

Awards And Honors

Research And Grants

Research Overview

  • My current research project involves examining how the material culture of human spaceflight, particularly in the setting of a museum exhibition, provides insight into the everyday lives of astronauts. By examining the development of small space technologies, those that sustain the daily needs of being human, we can see where those tools are like and unlike what we need on Earth. The museum is the ideal place to learn and connect with the experiences of astronauts, whose space lives we can only understand through visual and material evidence of that experience.

Publications

Selected Publications

Activities

Responsible Collections Areas

  • Human spaceflight cameras, astronaut chronographs; the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs

Outreach Overview

  • As curator of the forthcoming exhibition At Home in Space, I look for ways to connect the story of human spaceflight to our audience through artifacts, text, tactile experiences, mechanical and digital interactives.

Organizer Of Event

Affiliation

Member Of

Contact

Location

Mailing Address

  • Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
    Department of Space History
    P.O. Box 37012
    MRC 311
    Washington, DC 20013-7012