By Kathryn M. O’Neill
When the MIT Museum opened its new 56,000-square-foot space in Kendall Square last October, it was a time of public celebration. It was also a private point of pride for David Nuñez, SM ’15, who helped guide the museum’s transformation as its director of technology and digital strategy.
Nuñez joined the museum in 2017, about a year before the groundbreaking for the new building, and says he had his work cut out for him. “The museum didn’t have a way to sell tickets online. It didn’t have a great online collections search,” he says. “There were a lot of significant ways that I felt the museum could level up.”
Today, it has reimagined the online experience for visitors, who can now browse through more than 156,000 items from the museum’s collection and, yes, buy tickets. It’s also unveiled numerous in-gallery digital activities, ranging from listening to personal reflections on the Black experience at MIT to writing poetry with the help of artificial intelligence.