Cynthia Chavez Lamar is the first native woman to serve as a Smithsonian Museum director. The institution recently announced Chavez as the director of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C, which contains one of the largest collections of Native and Indigenous items in the world.
Chavez is a member at San Felipe Pueblo, and her maternal ancestry includes Hopi, Tewa, and Navajo.
She will be the third director of the museum following, Kevin Gover, a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe who served from 2007-2021, and W. Richard West Jr., who is southern Cheyenne, the founding director in 1990.
Original post by: Joe Hernandez/NPR
Read more here: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/20/1074489213/cynthia-chavez-lamar-becomes-the-first-native-woman-to-lead-a-smithsonian-museum
