MCN 2026

MCN 2026

11:00am PDT

Registration and Badge Pickup Level 5 Foyer

1:00pm PDT

Community Partners Drop-Off / Setup Level 5 Foyer Pre-Conference Tours TBD

3:15pm PDT

First-Timers Meetup & SIG Welcome 502 Cowlitz

4:45pm PDT

Registration and Badge Pickup The Point at Pier 70

5:00pm PDT

Ignite! Reception The Point at Pier 70nikhil trevedi • María-Elisa Heg • Andrea Montiel de Shuman • Nina Callaway • Miranda Kerr • Isabel Cuellar • Sherman Bausch • Sarah Wambold • Sonya Norman

7:30pm PDT

8:30am PDT

Continental Breakfast Quinault Ballroom Community Partner Showcase Level 5 Foyer Registration and Badge Pickup Gallery

9:00am PDT

Opening Remarks Elwah Ballroom

10:15am PDT

Sustaining Voice: Digital Media, Indigenous Representation, and Institutional Trust 501 ChiwawaKimberly Ly From Audience to Author: Remaking Museum Storytelling from the Outside In Elwah BallroomRachel Nicholson • Jocelyn Edens • Sofie Andersen • Sarah Wambold • Glenn North • Christine Murray The Museum as Experimental Space: Testing AI Interpretation in a Public Setting 512 WillapaRonald Czik • Lindsay Bartholomew Speed Networking 502 Cowlitz

10:40am PDT

A Collection of Relationships 501 ChiwawaDaniel Davis

11:00am PDT

Refreshment Break Level 5 Foyer

11:15am PDT

Going Beyond the Exhibition: Harnessing Virtual Tours for Preservation and Community Care 501 ChiwawaMia Cariello Trust, Built Locally: A Library's Archive AI 512 WillapaJungu Guo Digital Strategy Case Studies from Three Museums: Aligning Plans, People, and Practice 502 CowlitzKevin Kane • Frances Lloyd-Baynes • Jill Oster • Ryan Waggoner • Jennifer Talbott Reclaiming Your Digital Infrastructure Elwah BallroomMike Lee • Chad Weinard • Michelle Gude • Colin Brooks • Gary Dauphin

11:40am PDT

Assessing and implementing new AI workflows in the identification and description of artworks. 512 WillapaJennifer Sellar • Mark Simon Haydn From Novelty to Necessity: A Pressure Test for Museum XR 501 ChiwawaEsther Choy

12:00pm PDT

1:15pm PDT

The Art of Conversation: Designing an AI Companion Visitors Trust — and Enjoy 512 WillapaAmanda Boomstra • Stace Treat F***,Marry,Kill: Guidelines for Determining the Lifespan of a Digital Project 502 CowlitzErin Cecele Dunigan • Sarah Luken • Mara Kurlandsky From Metadata to Meaning: AI and the Future of Online Collections Elwah BallroomMartín Franzini • Madeleine DiBiasi • nikhil trevedi • Neil Hawkins Sponsor Session 501 Chiwawa

1:40pm PDT

AI with Intention: The Kelp Desk Story 512 WillapaSarah Call • Christine Lacayo

2:15pm PDT

Designing Trust: Art, Voice, and Difficult Histories 501 ChiwawaScott Gillam Art in 3D: A multi-institutional perspective on 3D in museums 502 CowlitzBrett Renfer • Kurt Heumiller • Nathan Ian Anderson • Dale Utt Collections Online in 3.5 Months: An Honest Look 512 WillapaBruce Wyman • Piotr Adamczyk • Susan Chun • Mark Dischler The Enduring Practice of Participatory Engagement Elwah BallroomEmily Cain • Summer L. Hamilton • Ann Sacher • Kamilah Stinnett

2:40pm PDT

Digital Governance at Getty 501 ChiwawaDavid Newbury • Britt Scholnick

3:00pm PDT

Refreshment Break Level 5 Foyer

3:15pm PDT

Magical, Tactile Media Devices: Creating Digital Experiences that Feel Anything But 501 ChiwawaCollin Warren Neither Here Nor There: Musetech as Ecotone 502 CowlitzIsabella Bruno • Marina Gross-Hoy Why Is This Even Here? Power, Interpretation, and Shared Authority in the Museum 512 WillapaJeremy Radtke • Kris Wilton • Ariel Hirschhorn • Alex Hanesworth Will GenAI kill the website as we know it? Elwah BallroomDouglas Hegley • David Newbury • Matt Tarr • Andrea Ledesma • Martín Franzini

3:40pm PDT

Mondrian at MoMA: Crafting interactive narratives from scientific research 501 ChiwawaMadhav Tankha • George Benson

6:00pm PDT

Evening Reception Pacific Science Center

8:30am PDT

Continental Breakfast Quinault Ballroom Registration and Badge Pickup Gallery Community Partner Showcase Level 5 Foyer

8:45am PDT

SIG Breakfast + Birds of a Feather Elwah Ballroom

9:45am PDT

How do you do, fellow kids? Transforming the Smithsonian’s social media video strategy 501 ChiwawaEmily Niekrasz • Emily Frost Rebuilding Search at The Met: From Infrastructure to Interface 512 WillapaJulie Turgeon • Derek Au Designed to Draft, Not Author: What Museum Partners Revealed About AI, Accessibility, and Trust Elwah BallroomDasha Pushkareva • Mark Osterman • Brittany Strupp Speed Networking 502 Cowlitz

10:10am PDT

Museum Rizzler: More than just a trend 501 ChiwawaMary King Shared vector embeddings - tilting towards action 512 WillapaAaron Cope

10:30am PDT

Refreshment Break Level 5 Foyer

10:45am PDT

Sketching with AI: 15 Prototypes in 15 minutes 512 WillapaBrett Renfer • Julia Daser Artists’ Tools, Museum Stories: Creative Coding in the Age of AI 502 CowlitzLiz Neely • Miriam Langer • Jonathan Lee Design for the Visit! A Jobs to Be Done Approach to Making Your Website Work, Work, Work 501 ChiwawaKristen Torres Korman • Kate Smith Williamschen • Beth Watson My Huntington: Integrating Trust, Teams, and Tech Elwah BallroomAlyssa Machida • Louise Cole • Bradley Platz

11:10am PDT

Trust, Transparency, and the Human-in-the-Loop: Scaling Museum Accessibility with Generative AI 512 WillapaMiloslava Hruba

11:45am PDT

Designing Trustworthy Generative Search Experiences for Museums 512 WillapaDeanna Wood Accessibility at Scale: Two Case Studies in Using AI to Write and Publish Visual Descriptions Elwah BallroomTara Bobinac • Julia Demarest Insight at the Museum: How Smithsonian's UX Lab Builds User Trust in Digital Products 502 CowlitzSara Snyder • Jordan Grant • John Nicholson Sponsor Session 501 Chiwawa

12:10pm PDT

Robots, Fever Dreams, and Escape Fantasies: Trusting AI with Our Art 512 WillapaJeff Steward

12:30pm PDT

Lunch Quinault Ballroom

1:45pm PDT

Collections Out of Context: An Experiment in Inter-institutional Collaboration 501 ChiwawaNabil Kashyap From Literacy to Agency: A Framework for Museums in Public Engagement with AI 512 WillapaEve Klein Before the Last Witness: Digital Storytelling for History That Can No Longer Speak for Itself 502 CowlitzStephanie Verdin • Brian McCormick • Cassie Pikarsky • Kristina Jenkins How Many Multidisciplinary Project Mangers Does It Take to Reimagine ArtLens? Elwah BallroomSeta Nagbe • Tessa Shlonsky • Haley Kedziora • Sara Mikail • Kelly Farrell

2:10pm PDT

Back on the RAILs: Rebuilding trust one track at a time 501 ChiwawaAlexis Recto • Zachary Rutland Museums and AI: Findings from a National Convening 512 WillapaKate Haley Goldman

2:30pm PDT

Refreshment Break Level 5 Foyer

2:45pm PDT

Modernizing Digital Exhibits: Legacy Codebases and Shifting Technology Landscapes 501 ChiwawaRadha Nagaraja AI-Powered Access to Collections and the Future of Audience Trust 512 WillapaAndrew Cary • Massimo Petrozzi • Paige Bailey • Laura Mann Building Trust That Lasts: 10 Years of Design 502 CowlitzMadlyn Larson • Kirsten Butcher • McKenna Lane Cultivating Awe with Art Online Elwah BallroomIsabella Bulkeley • Paula Lynn

3:10pm PDT

Multimodal by Design: Exhibit Software Architecture at the Obama Presidential Center 501 ChiwawaDiana Steakley-Freeman

3:45pm PDT

Closing Remarks Elwah Ballroom