Founder of SJLR Solutions – Museum Consultant, Evaluator, Educator, Speaker, Museum Visitor Advocate
Sheri founded SJLR Solutions so she can empower teams and demystify evaluation practices for cultural organizations and museum professionals across the country. In this capacity she offers her knowledge, skills, ideas, and resources for staff and leadership for teams of all sizes, and individuals of all levels of experience.
Sheri blends passion for culture, visitor experience, evaluation, and access in her work. Growing up in New York City, she began her journey as a museum champion while surrounded by the New York City museum community.
She excitedly entered the museum field in 1995 seeing the opportunity to combine her interests and degrees in cultural anthropology, elementary education, and art history. Her foray in museums began as an education intern and part-time gallery teacher at the Saint Louis Art Museum while residing in St. Louis, Missouri as an undergraduate, followed by a summer internship at the Art Institute of Chicago after graduating from Washington University with her bachelor’s degree.
After receiving her master’s degree in museum education from the George Washington University in Washington, DC in 1999, Sheri joined the Decatur House Museum (National Trust for Historic Preservation) in Washington, DC as the director of education and programs. During her 6+ year tenure, Sheri gained experience leading a team of part-time staff and volunteers, interacting with board members, grant writing and fundraising, interpretive planning, and exhibition development and installation.
Sheri moved back to New York City in January 2005 to join the education team at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Over the course of 15 years she held myriad positions, each with increasing oversight of the education department staff and initiatives. In her most recent role as assistant vice president for research and evaluation, Sheri led the Museum’s first internal evaluation team, responsible for conducting visitor experience studies, exhibition element prototyping, education and public program assessments, and preparing findings reports and visualizations.
In her position at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Sheri worked on a wide range of funding proposals and projects including those supported by national agencies including IMLS, NEH, NSF, and NEA.
Sheri is committed to high quality and accessible museum experiences and serves on local and national steering committees for EdCom and MAC, is a former NYCMER board member, serves on programming committees for AASLH and AAM, and has served as a grant reviewer for IMLS.
As adjunct faculty with Seton Hall University’s Museum Professions and New York University’s Museum Studies graduate programs, Sheri taught courses about evaluation in museums, museums and communities, and audience research.
Sheri is published on topics of accessibility, inclusion, out-of-school time programs at museums, and evaluation user experience practices. She has presented nationally at more than 25 professional conferences and webinars exploring questions and topics in the fields of museum education, access, research and evaluation, and collaboration.