Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Seddon Bennington
Summary
Seddon Leonard Bennington (8 October 1947 – c. 11 July 2009) was a New Zealand museum executive. Bennington was the chief executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the national museum of New Zealand, from January 2003 until his death in 2009, and had also been the director of the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1994 until 2002.
Bennington was born in Hanmer Springs, North Canterbury, on the South Island of New Zealand. His parents, Charles and Lillian Jean Bennington, reportedly named him after the former New Zealand Prime Minister Richard Seddon, whom they admired for his efforts to benefit working class New Zealanders.
Bennington attended Hanmer Springs Primary School, Culverden District High School and Shirley Boys' High School. He credited a teacher at Culverden with introducing him to biology, his favourite subject. An art teacher also took him and other students on a birdwatching trip to Kapiti Island when he was in seventh grade, and the trip left him with a lifelong appreciation for art and nature.
Bennington joined the Volunteer Service Abroad in Western Samoa in 1966. He then returned to New Zealand to study across the arts and sciences, and during this time also worked as a teacher.
He obtained his doctorate in zoology from the University of Canterbury, and also studied a variety of subjects, including New Zealand history, Māori studies, art history and anthropology.
Bennington had two sons, Emile and Marcel.
Bennington was appointed the head of the Otago Early Settlers' Museum in Dunedin, and then director of the Wellington City Art Gallery, early in his career. He went on to be the head of both the Scitech Discovery Centre in Perth, Australia, and the Division of Professional Services at the Western Australian Museum. He wrote a book entitled Handbook for Small Museums while living and working in Australia.
Bennington became the director of the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh in 1994. He is credited with reviving the science centre and making the institution financially stable.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.