Carolyn Royston

Carolyn Royston is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Information at Pratt Institute, where she teaches Museum Digital Strategy. She is an international museum strategist, consultant, and educator who helps cultural organizations navigate organizational change, digital transformation, and emerging technologies to create more meaningful public value.

Over the past two decades, Carolyn has held senior leadership positions at some of the world’s leading museums, including  Brooklyn Museum; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and Imperial War Museums and the Victorian and Albert Museum in the United Kingdom. Her work has spanned strategy, digital transformation, visitor experience, technology, operations, and organizational leadership, with a particular interest in how museums build the organizational capability to learn, adapt, and innovate.

Alongside her academic appointment, Carolyn advises museums, archives, and cultural organizations internationally on strategic planning, organizational capability, digital transformation, leadership, and visitor experience. Her recent consulting work includes projects with The Frick Collection, American Alliance of Museums, the Tenement Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and Art UK. She is also an advisor and mentor for the ICOM Research Fellowship Programme in Digital Leadership and serves on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Digital Culture at the University of Leicester, UK.

Carolyn’s teaching draws directly from contemporary practice, combining strategic frameworks with real-world case studies and live client projects. She encourages students to view digital strategy not as a technology initiative but as an organizational capability that connects leadership, collections, audiences, operations, and innovation. Her courses emphasize critical thinking, collaboration, and practical problem-solving, preparing graduates to lead change across museums and other cultural institutions.

Carolyn’s research and professional interests explore how museums develop the organizational capability to learn, adapt, and create public value in an era of rapid technological change. She is particularly interested in the role of leadership, organizational learning, and emerging technologies in shaping resilient, future-ready cultural institutions.

Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), University of London, UK

MA Social and Political Thought, University of Sussex, UK
BA Politics, Mount Holyoke College

Selected Publications

• Royston, C. (2025). Reopening with Purpose: As part of an extensive renovation, The Frick Collection reimagined the visitor experience. Museum Magazine, American Alliance of Museums (November/December 2025).
• Royston, C. (2025). We’ve Seen This Before: Museums seeking to incorporate AI into their operations can look to lessons learned in previous digital transformations. Museum Magazine, American Alliance of Museums (July/August 2025).
• Royston, C. (2025). Foreword to Leading Digital Confidence in the Post-Digital Museum, edited by Ross Parry and Vince Dziekan. Routledge.

Selected Professional Consulting Projects

• The Frick Collection (New York) – Partnered with the museum’s Marketing, Visitor Experience and Security teams to develop a visitor-centered framework that aligned visitor journeys, service values, staff training, and organizational practice around a shared vision for the visitor experience.
• American Alliance of Museums (AAM) – Strategic consultant supporting the redesign of professional learning and organizational capacity-building initiatives.
• Tenement Museum – Advised on digital transformation initiatives and the development of new interactive digital experiences to enhance visitor engagement.
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA LA) – Developed a strategic roadmap for a Digital Asset Management System (DAMS), defining requirements for the long-term management and accessibility of digital assets.
• Museum of the American Revolution – Partnered with museum leadership to deliver organization-wide training that brought the museum’s service values to life, strengthening staff alignment and a shared commitment to the visitor experience.
• Museu Egipci de Barcelona (Spain) – Mentored the museum’s leadership team on digital strategy and organizational capability to support its digital transformation.