Dr. Arthur Molella is the founding director of the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and now serves as Director Emeritus and as a senior lecturer in the Department of History of Science and Technology at Johns Hopkins University. Under his direction, the Lemelson Center developed a wide range of publications, exhibitions, and programs, particularly on aspects of environmental and urban history, including Inventing for the Environment (co-edited with Joyce Bedi; MIT Press, 2003) and Invented Edens: Techno-Cities of the 20th Century (with Robert Kargon; MIT Press, 2008). He has published and lectured internationally on the relationship between science, technology, and culture and on museum exhibitions and strategies.
At the National Museum of American History, Molella has also served variously as curator of the Electricity Collections and chairman of the Department of the History of Science and Technology and of the Department of History. He was head curator of the Smithsonian’s Science in American Life exhibition and co-curator of the international exhibition Nobel Voices. Molella received his Ph.D. in the history of science from Cornell University and was awarded a doctorate of science, honoris causa, from Westminster University in the United Kingdom. Molella currently serves on the boards of the National Academy of Inventors and the MIT Museum.
