Applications for the 2026 Curator’s Fellowship are open now through February 6, 2026.
The Curator’s Fellow conducts research in MOHAI’s collections and prepares a public presentation offering new insights on MOHAI materials and Puget Sound area history. This MOHAI collection-based project takes place over six months, including 10 to 20 hours of on-site research, and pays a stipend of $5000. MOHAI prioritizes research that includes stories of historically marginalized or excluded communities, particularly Black, Indigenous, People of Color.
The museum invites applications from community and academic researchers and historians whose work focuses on the history of the Pacific Northwest. Research should bring new interpretations or insight to MOHAI’s content.
For our 2026 Curator’s Fellowship, MOHAI is interested in learning more about specific communities in Seattle’s history for upcoming museum priorities, and we would like applications to address one of the two topics listed below. Researchers will be asked to search within MOHAI’s collections for these stories, but also encouraged to do research at other local institutions.
Topic 1: Disability history, including people with physical disabilities, people who are deaf/hard-of-hearing, blind/low-vision, neurodivergent, and people with chronic illnesses including mental illness. We are interested in stories of daily life, advocacy and activism, and how disability history intersects with other historical themes (health care, housing, labor, education, etc.).
Topic 2: Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander history in Seattle and the region, from 19th century sailors to more recent migrations fueled by colonial/military developments, educational opportunities, and economic pressures. We are interested in stories about NH/PI identity, culture, labor, and community life – and more.
Explore Past Curator's Fellows
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2025 Curator's Fellow: Thanh Tan
MOHAI is proud to announce Thanh Tan as the museum’s fourth annual Curator’s Fellow. Join us this fall for a special program as Tan explores the interconnected histories of Southeast Asian communities in Seattle during their formative years of resettlement in the late 1970s and 1980s. Through research in MOHAI’s collections, Tan will examine how Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Filipino and other Southeast Asian groups built networks of mutual support while navigating existing Seattle systems and institutions.
The project will investigate artifacts, photographs, and documents that reveal early support systems, cross-cultural events, community advocacy efforts, economic development initiatives, and educational resources that shaped these communities’ integration into Seattle’s social fabric. By highlighting previously untold stories of cross-cultural cooperation and resilience, this research will contribute to MOHAI’s mission of preserving historically marginalized communities’ experiences.
Thanh Tan is a journalist and documentarian who has spent two decades chronicling the Vietnamese diaspora. Born in Olympia as the first American-born child of Vietnamese refugees, Tan has created award-winning projects including “Second Wave” (PRX/KUOW) and “Refuge After War” (KCTS/Crosscut). As co-founder of SEA Vinyl Society, Tan works to preserve and share the music and cultural heritage of the Asian diaspora through community initiatives and multimedia storytelling.
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2024 Curator's Fellow: Polly Yorioka
MOHAI is proud to announce Polly Yorioka as the museum’s third annual Curator’s Fellow!
This year, Polly will be focusing her research on the history and significance of the Boys’ and Girls’ Day sets given to Bailey Gatzert Elementary School at the time of the WWII Japanese incarceration. She is a fourth-generation Seattleite and a graduate of the University of Washington with an MA in International Studies in Comparative Religion and is currently in the UW Museology MA program. Polly is also a Museology Associate at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.
On October 23, 2024, Polly will present her research on the experiences of Japanese children who struggled with their American identity while unjustly incarcerated, as seen through the dolls they left behind. Keep an eye out for more information!
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2023 Curator's Fellow: Linda Lee
On paper, Linda Lee (she/her) is a museum professional with a Museum Studies MA and Zoology BS, with a growing career in exhibit design and production. Behind the curtain, Linda is a dog mom, a lover of the outdoors, and a dedicated advocate to social justice reform and DEAI practices.
An active member of the museum field, Linda is continuously driven to find opportunities to provide for and connect with the community, with this Fellowship as a perfect opportunity to shed light on the untold stories of immigrant communities.
Her project “Transformation Through Immigration” was inspired by the stories and contributions of the often-uncredited immigrants and community members of this diverse city. She focused on artifacts donated by two remarkable women: Lillian Goon Dip and Ann Dulien. Though this study only sheds light on a tiny sliver of the community, the overarching goal is to recognize past wrongs and to contribute to social justice reform by revealing hidden history and inspiring others to do the same.
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2022 Curator's Fellow: Brittney Frantece
Brittney Frantece is a writer, artist, educator, curator, and PhD candidate in the English Department at the University of Washington. She curated Queer Imaginations (2021) at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery in Seattle and Juneteenth: Blackness and Freedom (2018) at The Beans Gallery in Chicago.
In 2022, she researched and analyzed photographs in MOHAI’s Al Smith Collection for how they demonstrate Black world building during the mid-20th century in the Pacific Northwest.
Learn more about how she uses Black ecstatic reading practices in relation to the Al Smith Collection in her 2022 Curators Fellowship Workshop.