Tessa Shultz

Tessa Shultz is a cultural strategist guided by the belief that artists reshape the world by reshaping what we know. She currently serves as Senior Manager of Outreach & Engagement for Special Collections at the National Geographic Society, where she leads relational stewardship strategy. Previously, Tessa managed the largest community loans initiative at the National Museum of the American Indian, work that continues to inform the Smithsonian’s Ethical Returns and Shared Stewardship efforts.

The highest honor of her career has been working alongside Native communities to build lasting relationships that elevate cultural self-determination, including managing a Native-led film project that documented Indigenous pottery knowledge across the East Coast, and facilitating the 2019 return of 100 ancestral pots to the Poeh Cultural Center. Tessa also serves on the board of Your Neighborhood Museum, a visionary organization reimagining museums as sites of community authority.