LACMA is pleased to announce its selection as a host organization for the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Public Fellows Program, a career-building fellowship initiative designed to expand the reach of doctoral education in the humanities. In 2016, the Public Fellows Program will place up to 21 recent PhDs from the humanities and humanistic social sciences in two-year staff positions at partnering organizations in government and the nonprofit sector.  Fellows will participate in the substantive work of these organizations and will receive professional mentoring, an annual stipend of $65,000, and health insurance.

Through the ACLS Public Fellows Program, LACMA seeks a Digital Content Specialist with an aptitude for writing clear, concise, jargon-free, engaging prose, and finding engaging media pertaining to works of art in our collection. The specialist’s portfolio will include creating original content for our collections website, editing existing content, and working with third parties including Wikipedia to promote accurate, engaging content about LACMA’s collection on the web. The successful candidate should have an openness to a wide variety of scholarly points of view, strong collaboration skills, and exceptional writing skills with a particular emphasis on writing for a general adult audience. This position takes direction from and supplements our digital media staff, consulting with curators, educators, conservators, and other content specialists. The Digital Content Specialist may also be involved in interviewing artists in our collection. This is a great opportunity for someone who has an interest in working with novice audiences and the general public. By the end of the fellowship, the Digital Media Specialist will have contributed original content for a significant number of the 3,000 works on view in the galleries, and will fully understand and be able to optimize curatorial workflows for creating and disseminating interpretive data related to works in the collection via the web.

Primary responsibilities:

• In consultation with the digital media staff, writing and editing content for the web and mobile;

• In collaboration with the creative director for digital media, developing original video for the web and mobile, including planning, scheduling, transcribing, interviewing, and scripting;

• Co-developing online classes by working with curators and educators to gather and develop online resources pertaining to specific topics related to the museum’s collection;

• With curators and others, developing original content (text and audio) for works of art in the museum’s collection online;

• Adding content to museum websites via LACMA’s CMS; and

• Working with Wikipedians and other third-party content developers and publishers to disseminate information about LACMA’s collection online.

Required and preferred qualifications: 

• PhD in the humanities or humanistic social sciences

• Outstanding communication skills, both written and oral;

• Fluency in Microsoft Office suite and Google apps;

• High energy and passion for engaging general novice audiences in learning about art of all periods and places of origin;

• Excellent organizational and time management skills, with attention to detail;

• Excellent research skills; and

• Enthusiasm for online learning and web and mobile media.

Please DO NOT send your application to LACMA. Applications for this position are accepted solely through the ACLS Public Fellows program. Only complete applications, submitted through the ACLS Online Fellowship Application system (ofa.acls.org) by Thursday, March 24, 8 pm EDT, will be considered. The fellowship competition will begin accepting applications on January 14. For more information, please visit http://www.acls.org/programs/publicfellowscomp/.

ACLS Public Fellows is a fellowship program offered by the American Council of Learned Societies with generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Please direct all inquiries about the fellowship program to ACLS.