Julian Siggers has been appointed the Williams Director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, effective July 1. Siggers is currently vice president for programs, education, and content communication at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada’s largest research museum. He has also served as director of the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum and as head of narrative and broadcast development at the United Kingdom’s National Museum of Science and Industry in London.

Siggers taught prehistoric archaeology for eight years at the University of Toronto, where he earned his Ph.D., with a specialization in Near Eastern prehistoric archaeology.

“As we celebrate the Penn Museum’s 125th anniversary, Julian Siggers is the perfect director to lead the nation’s finest university archeological museum,” says Penn President Amy Gutmann. “Julian is deeply committed to the Museum’s essential missions of research, teaching, and public outreach, and engagement. In addition, he has extensive experience with museum stewardship and growth.”