Sharon E. Shaffer is recognized as a national and international leader in early learning in museums. As an independent consultant, she collaborates with traditional museums, children’s museums, and schools in their efforts to imagine and reimagine meaningful ways to engage children in learning about their world and themselves. She draws on her many years of experience in the field, including her tenure as the Founding Director for the Smithsonian Institution’s model lab school in Washington, DC, where she established a signature program of learning for the Institution. In recognition of her pioneering work, Shaffer received The Secretary’s Gold Medal for Exceptional Service from the Smithsonian – the only educator with this distinction – for creating a national model in museum-based learning for young children. Shaffer teaches for The University of Virginia and publishes regularly. She was the guest editor for the Journal of Museum Education (Spring 2012), "Early Learning: A National Conversation." The success of her first book, Engaging Young Children in Museums (2015), now translated into Chinese and Greek, led to a second, Object Lessons and Early Learning (2018). Her second text explores the power of objects in learning, children’s curiosity about the world, and their natural affinity to collect.