UC Berkeley names next director of Hearst Museum of Anthropology

Micah Parzen, a longtime museum leader who oversaw the multiyear transformation of one of the country’s most visited anthropology museums, has been named the next executive director of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley.

Parzen, a Berkeley alum, has spent the past 16 years helming the Museum of Us in San Diego’s Balboa Park through a period of profound change. As CEO, he helped significantly deepen the museum’s relationships with Indigenous communities locally and around the world while advancing a more community-centered approach. He also shepherded the organization’s historic name change in 2020 — it had long been the San Diego Museum of Man and has since been recognized nationally for redefining how museums engage with the communities whose stories they share.

“I am delighted that Micah Parzen will be joining us at UC Berkeley,” said Vice Chancellor for Research Kathy Yelick. “As a nationally recognized leader in the field, he will be an invaluable partner in advancing the Hearst Museum’s mission as a dynamic, community-centered institution dedicated to research, learning, public engagement and relational repair.”

Founded in 1901, the Hearst Museum holds an estimated 3.8 million cultural resources from California and around the world, as well as extensive documents, photographs and film recordings. Parzen will help chart the museum’s next chapter that both acknowledges its complex history and seeks opportunities for repair and healing. He will also maintain the museum’s partnership with the campus repatriation department, continuing the return of Indigenous ancestors and belongings. Parzen plans to develop new opportunities for research, teaching and engaging with descendant communities locally and globally, as well as with students and the broader public.

Leading the Hearst Museum will mark a homecoming of sorts for Parzen, who graduated from Berkeley in 1991 with an undergraduate degree in anthropology. In an interview, he recalled how cultural anthropology classes shaped the way he saw connections between groups of people and helped him appreciate our interdependence as humans.

“It was as an undergraduate at Berkeley that I fell head over heels in love with anthropology, not just as a field of study but also as a philosophical orientation to the world,” Parzen said. “It just resonated so deeply with my own personal values.”

Parzen earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio before returning to California for his law degree at UC Davis. He settled in San Diego, where he worked at a firm and specialized in employment law. It was as much about understanding human resources and rulebooks as it was rooted in studying how people communicate and interact. To Parzen, it felt like a form of ethnography.

He joined various arts and culture organizations in the city and had grown up going to the then-San Diego Museum of Man. Parzen was initially doubtful when the CEO job opened up and colleagues suggested he consider applying for it. He had a doctorate in anthropology, a law degree and nonprofit experience, but he hadn’t worked a single day in a museum. 

“It was an extraordinarily steep and humbling learning curve, and I did what any reasonable person would do: I brought in really good people around me who knew what they were doing,” Parzen said. “And together, we began the work of transforming the museum.”

Parzen’s team reimagined how the museum works with Indigenous communities, grounding its approach in relational repair, trust-building and accountability. This has meant prioritizing community consultation — including with Indigenous elders and knowledge bearers — across all work in its broader decolonizing and anti-racism efforts. These values became central to the museum’s identity and practice, he said, informing everything from innovative exhibitions on race to field-leading approaches for returning cultural resources to their home communities. 

That mindset was also behind the name change to the Museum of Us. More than a simple brand refresh, the update signaled a new era of change for the museum, Parzen said, and came to embody what a community-centered museum could look like at its best.

“It allowed us to be crystal clear about who we were and what we stood for,” Parzen said. “It was part descriptive, part aspirational, always posing the question: What does it mean to be a museum that is truly for all of us?”

Parzen will bring that question to the Hearst Museum in the context of a public university. The museum has been in a state of transition for several years. While repatriation efforts have continued, the main gallery was closed in 2020 during the pandemic. It remained closed for HVAC repairs and to allow the museum to prioritize staffing for consultation and repatriation efforts, as well as limited research and teaching. The gallery reopened for public access on a limited basis last fall. 

“I’m excited to see how Micah advances the Hearst Museum and the partnership possibilities his appointment represents for our repatriation team,” said Alexandra Lucas, the campus’s director of repatriation. “Over the past five years, we have centralized repatriation on campus and developed a steady program that centers the protocols and voices of the Native Nations we are working for.”  

“This appointment underscores Berkeley’s dedication to investing in, building and sustaining meaningful, reciprocal relationships with Indigenous and descendant communities across the campus and beyond,” said Christine Treadway, assistant chancellor of government and community relations.

Parzen said he looks forward to the multiyear project that will both continue supporting the important work of relational repair with Indigenous communities and also align around a shared vision for the museum’s next chapter. 

In addition to his CEO position, Parzen has held leadership and advisory roles across the museum field, including service on the board of the American Alliance of Museums, the board of the Western Museums Association and as board president of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, a collaborative of 28 arts and cultural institutions.

Parzen’s first day at Berkeley is Sept. 1. An avid soccer fan — and Cal men’s soccer alum — Parzen plans to attend the World Cup this summer while arranging his Bay Area move.