Julia Novakowski

Julia T. Novakowski is the director of the Smithsonian’s Office of Educational Technology. She is responsible for supporting the Institution’s educational strategies, defining its educational technology strategy and supporting its initiatives as well as connecting internal and external educational partners to the digital resources housed and created at the Smithsonian. She oversees the award-winning Smithsonian Learning Lab, educational programming and professional development, and national and international partnerships, interns and fellows.

Previously, Novakowski worked in leadership development at CoxHealth, a midsize health-care system, overseeing and leading the launch of the first professional development for individual contributors in the system. She created the first system-wide professional learning community, connecting the over 200 health-care educators across the system spread across over 20 departments to help support recruitment and retention and system-wide human resources initiatives.

Before working in health care, she was a  professor of education at Missouri State University, teaching pre-service and practicing teachers in Southwest Missouri and Central Missouri. She supported sustainability initiatives at the university as the chair of the academic subcommittee, helping to launch the first interdisciplinary major in sustainability along with creating the sustainability faculty fellows program.

While completing her doctorate, Novakowski worked in digital accessibility at Ohio State as an analyst supporting the university’s accessibility initiatives. She evaluated digital tools, provided training for instructional designers and has presented on strategies for digital accessibility implementation.

Before teaching at Missouri State University, Novakowski taught social studies, math and language arts in middle school and was an educational technologist.

Novakowski holds a bachelor’s degree in history with a concentration in science and technology and a Master of Education in curriculum and instruction from the University of Maryland. She holds a Master of Arts in educational studies with a focus on educational philosophy and psychology and a doctorate in educational studies with a focus on philosophy and history of education from Ohio State University.

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SI-282-2023