bio

Tim Grove brings a comprehensive package as an interpretive planner and exhibition and content developer. His education combines an undergraduate degree in journalism and public relations with a graduate degree in American history. His twenty-five year career has included work in education, exhibition development, and technology at some of America’s most visited museums, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and Colonial Williamsburg.

Listed among the history field’s “most engaging, innovative, and entrepreneurial leaders,” Grove is profiled in the book Leadership Matters (Anne W. Ackerson and Joan H. Baldwin, Rowman and Littlefield Press, 2014). As a change agent, he co-founded the History Relevance initiative, as an educator he was presented the Smithsonian Individual Achievement in Education award in 2008, as an emerging leader he completed the Smithsonian Palmer Leadership Development Program in 2012. Grove has served on review panels for the Institute for Museum and Library Services and the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.

Grove served on the core team that developed Lewis and Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibition, which originated from the Missouri Historical Society and traveled the country.  He directed the online version which won Best Online Exhibition in international competition, and guided two teams of teachers in St. Louis and Philadelphia and tribal advisers in producing the curriculum used in Missouri and across the nation. In addition, he wrote an educational series for newspapers across Missouri and a 16-page educational supplement for newspapers across the United States.

An engaging and inspiring speaker, Grove has taught graduate students and museum professionals from California to New Hampshire and Puerto Rico, national workshops at multiple conferences, and aspiring history museum leaders at the History Leadership Institute (formerly the Seminar for Historical Administration). He regularly serves as guest speaker for graduate and undergraduate museum studies and public history classes.

Grove’s fifth book will be published in 2019. He writes about museum practice, the history field, history relevance, his career, and nonfiction history for ages 10-14.  First Flight Around the World, his first children’s work, was a finalist for the YALSA excellence in nonfiction award given by the American Library Association. His writing has appeared in newspapers around the country.

Grove’s innovative exhibitions and programs have included hands-on learning spaces at several Smithsonian museums, an alternate reality game called Smithsonian Techquest, and exploratory exhibition components that encourage active learning. He has served as the educator on the core team of seven major Smithsonian exhibitions and has written exhibit labels for each one of them.

Grove is based in the Washington, D.C. area.