News Release: Clifford Chanin Named Next 9/11 Memorial Museum Di

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 14, 2022

CLIFFORD CHANIN NAMED NEXT 9/11 MEMORIAL MUSEUM DIRECTOR

(New York) December 14, 2022 – The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is proud to announce Clifford Chanin as the institution’s new Museum Director.

Chanin joined the initial planning team for the Museum in 2005 and has since served as Vice-President of Education and, most recently, Executive Vice President and Deputy Director for Museum Programs. He will oversee the significant growth of the Museum’s exhibitions, collections, and education, public, and professional programs.

“After appointing Elizabeth Hillman President and CEO, Cliff as Museum Director was the natural decision,” said Co-Chair of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum Education & External Affairs Committee Andrew Senchak. “His mastery of the complex history of 9/11 and dedication to this institution is unparalleled. He has grown the professional programs substantially, positioning the Museum rightfully as the best educational partner for law and other government agencies seeking to teach recruits about this historic event. I look forward to seeing what other programmatic plans he has in store.”   

He has curated several Museum exhibitions, including Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden, serving also as executive producer of the History Channel documentary of the same name; Memory Remains: 9/11 Artifacts at Hangar 17 by Francesc Torres; 9/11 and the American Landscape: The Photographs of Jonathan Hyman. He edited exhibition catalogs for the latter two exhibitions. Chanin also coedited The Stories They Tell: Artifacts from the National September 11 Memorial Museum (Rizzoli, 2013).

“Cliff’s passion for this subject matter and institution is evident in everything he does,” said Elizabeth L. Hillman, President & CEO of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. “As I have begun my new role, Cliff’s partnership has been invaluable, and I am eager to see what we can accomplish together.”  

“I am profoundly grateful to be selected as the next Director of the 9/11 Memorial Museum,” Clifford Chanin said. “Every year since the Museum opened in 2014, we’ve seen greater demand for our programs from diverse national and international audiences, ranging from our Museum visitors to school children to corporate and government executives. More and more, we engage with audiences that have no lived memory of 9/11 but recognize that there is something deeply important about understanding the day and its ongoing impact. My commitment, joined by my Museum colleagues, is to provide them with the programs they need to deepen their engagement. This will be our focus as we move toward the milestone 25th anniversary in 2026.”

For ten years, Chanin was Associate Director of Arts and Humanities at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he developed programs on pluralism and development in the Muslim world. Chanin is also founder of the Legacy Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting how societies reckon with histories of conflict and mass violence. Based on this work, he curated a permanent art collection for the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. He has proven a reliable partner for organizations grappling with the challenges of commemorating devastating events and serves as a consultant with several nascent museums, including sites in France and Norway.  

Chanin succeeds Alice M. Greenwald, who retired as Museum Director and President & CEO earlier this year. The Board of Trustees appointed Elizabeth Hillman as President & CEO in August of this year.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL SEPTEMBER 11 MEMORIAL & MUSEUM
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is the nonprofit organization that oversees operations for the 9/11 Memorial and 9/11 Memorial Museum. Located on eight of the 16 acres of the World Trade Center site, the Memorial and Museum remember and honor the 2,983 people who were killed in the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993. The Memorial plaza design consists of two reflecting pools formed in the footprints of the original Twin Towers surrounded by swamp white oak trees. The Museum displays more than 900 personal and monumental objects while its collection includes more than 67,500 items that present intimate stories of loss, compassion, reckoning and recovery linked to the events of 9/11 and the aftermath The Museum also explores the global impact of 9/11 and its continuing significance through education programs, public programs, live talks and film features that cover contemporary topics designed for diverse audiences. For more information or to reserve a ticket to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, please visit 911memorial.org.

MEDIA CONTACT
Lee Cochran/Grant Kinsaul | (212) 312-8787 | press@911memorial.org
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