Meanwhile... at the Museum

Julia Child is an icon of American cooking. With her cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and her TV show "The French Chef," Julia made French cooking accessible to millions. In our featured exhibition "Julia Child: A Recipe For Life" (February - May 2025) you can explore the life of Julia Child, from her time in the OSS during World War II to her star turn on TV and beyond. Today, we're talking to Todd Schulkin, the Executive Director of the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. We'll talk all things Julia, but also dig into Todd's background and his work with the Foundation.

Dave Duszynski has been part of our organization since before it was Cincinnati Museum Center. While he originally worked at the planetarium in the Museum of Natural History & Science's old Gilbert Avenue location, has been in charge of our OMNIMAX theater since it opened in 1990. He's also been a key player in bringing in our Featured Exhibitions like Pompeii, Maya and Bricktionary. We'll dig into how Dave's fascination with astronomy as a child led to a degree in astrophysics and eventually a distinguished career at Cincinnati Museum Center, as well as some of his favorite OMNIMAX films and exhibits.

Our latest OMNIMAX film features one of the biggest stars to ever grace our domed screen - Tyrannosaurus Rex! We sat down with Andy Wood, the writer, producer, and co-director of T. REX to talk about the process of making a movie this big, what it takes to get dinosaurs into the movie, and what it was like to be there with cameras rolling as the dinosaur bones that had been discovered by three young boys in North Dakota turned out to be a T. rex! 

Dan Hurley has been a public historian in Cincinnati for a long time. You may have seen him on TV, heard him on the radio or read his essays in local newspapers. He also worked in our History Library and Archives for years. Now, in his new book Four Cincinnatis and Other Essays, Dan has collected 88 of his essays written over the last 25 years that explore Cincinnati's history from a wide variety of angles and topics. We sat down with Dan to discuss his personal history, his new book and the work of a historian. 

Make sure to keep an eye out for Four Cincinnatis and Other Essays, available in our CMC gift shop and on Amazon. Proceeds from the sale of the book go to our History Library and Archives!

Every year from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, you can visit with Santa Claus here at Cincinnati Museum Center. So for Christmas this year, we asked Santa himself to come be on the podcast. We'll get the inside scoop on Santa's cookie and milk preferences, how to end up on the naughty or nice list, and why he comes back to CMC year after year. 

Is Brian Pollock a physicist, a scientist or a chef? Depends who's asking. Brian is an informal educator extraordinaire. A lover of science and education who has come to be a lover of history and museums, Brian is part of the team that develops programs at CMC, particularly science programs. If you've visited our CreEATe Culinary Studio Featuring the Kroger Food Lab, seen a science stage show, or have seen one of our famous liquid nitrogen explosions, you've seen his work. In this episode, we'll dig into a bit of Brian's backstory and ask him whatever science related questions pop into our heads. 

Arynn McCandless is our Director of Program Development. So when you come into the museum and see a demonstration on the water cycle, dance in the Children's Museum, or watch a show on our Science Stage, you're seeing some of Arynn's work in action. In this episode, we'll talk to Arynn about her career here at CMC, her time as an art teacher, her connection to rabbits, candy, Pokemon, and a whole lot more. 

Our Cincinnati History Library and Archives started collecting documents in 1831. So you can probably imagine that after almost 200 years, we have quite a few papers in our collection. So how do you manage and care for all those historical records? Enter Christine Engels, our Manager of Archives. In this episode, we'll ask our burning questions about what an archivist does, how Christine became an archivist, and who has the best and worst handwriting in the collection. 

Almost 30 years ago, Dr. Glenn Storrs arrived in Cincinnati as Museum Center's new Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology. At the time, the vertebrate paleontology collection was mostly focused on ice age animals. Which are great! But Glenn had a vision for a dinosaur collection and exhibit. Over the years, through active digs and partnerships with other institutions, Glenn and his fellow collections staff and volunteers built up an incredible collection of dinosaur fossils. Some the biggest and rarest are on display now in our Dinosaur Hall! In this episode, we'll find out how Glenn went from dinosaur kid to dinosaur adult, talk about how he brought his vision for a dinosaur exhibit to fruition, and ask all the questions we've always wanted to ask a paleontologist.

After bouncing from coast to coast and even a few stints in Hong Kong, Amy Vlastelica has landed at Cincinnati Museum Center as our Director of Exhibition Design. So what does an exhibition designer do? We'll dig into that, Amy's career in museums and design firms, and her efforts to create the first children's museum in Hong Kong!