사회

The Chief of Chicago’s Science Museum Is Doing Some Experiments

which it secured in 2022, its first major acquisition in 30 years. The museum is colossal: a... Humphrey sees it as an opportunity for the museum’s youngest patrons to grapple with larger...

NYTIMES 입력 2026.04.26 18:02 0

The Chief of Chicago’s Science Museum Is Doing Some Experiments

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

Credit...

By Jamie Kelter Davis For The New York Times

Skip to site index

Home

U.S.

World

Business

Arts

Lifestyle

Opinion

Video

Audio

Games

Cooking

Wirecutter

The Athletic

U.S.

International

Canada

Español

中文

corner office

The Chief of Chicago’s Science Museum Is Doing Some Experiments

Chevy Humphrey explains why the scientific method matters in business.

Credit...

By Jamie Kelter Davis For The New York Times

Supported by

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Listen

· 10:55 min

Share full article

Jordyn Holman

Jordyn Holman remembers trekking to the Body Worlds exhibit multiple times as a child in Chicago.

April 26, 2026

The largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere is doing a lot of experiments these days.

To attract more visitors, the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has rotated its exhibits more frequently, adjusted its schedule of free-admission days and acquired splashy new pieces, like a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which it secured in 2022, its first major acquisition in 30 years.

The museum is colossal: a Beaux-Arts style palace built for the 1893 World’s Fair sprawls over more than a million square feet and houses exhibits that include an interactive coal mine that inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland, a simulated 40-foot tornado and the only German submarine in the United States. In the rotunda, digital screens flash the question: “What Is Science?”

Chevy Humphrey, the chief executive, is trying to answer that question in a broad and urgent way. In May, the museum will open a new permanent exhibit exploring “

how energy shapes our daily lives

,” just as the war in Iran is prompting big questions about our relationship with oil, gas and other sources of power.

That is a traditional initiative for a science museum. Just a few paces away, another exhibit is set to open on something less expected: Anne Frank. Dr. Humphrey sees it as an opportunity for the museum’s youngest patrons to grapple with larger, frightening forces around them, as Frank did in her “Dear Kitty” journal during the Holocaust.

“Kids are just trying to make sense of the world and still have a childhood,” Ms. Humphrey said, noting “all the things happening with the war, with the school shootings,” and other alarming events.

Dr. Humphrey took the top job at the museum in early 2021, as attendance plummeted during the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic. She is the first woman and person of color to run the institution and has focused on forging ties with the surrounding Hyde Park neighborhood. She’s also overseeing the museum at a time when discussing science has become particularly fraught; everything from vaccines to climate change has become politicized.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and

log into

your Times account, or

for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?

Want all of The Times?