Kara Lewis is an accomplished museum collections information professional with over 25 years of experience managing collections systems and providing strategic vision for collections data standards and best practices. She is currently the Manager of Cataloging and Collections Information at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History where she is overseeing two transformational projects for their collection of over 1.8 million objects: the development and refinement of museum-wide standards and workflows and the migration of their collections management system. Prior to her current role, she held positions in both systems and data management at the National Museum of the American Indian. Her recent research explores re-envisioning museum collections management systems beyond object-centric processes to more effectively prioritize people, stories, and relationships. Prior to working in the federal government, she built her foundations in collections information at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University as their Collections Database Administrator. And before pursuing full-time museum work, she earned a master’s in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School where she studied social and biomedical ethics.