Lath Carlson

Lāth returned to Seattle in October of 2024 to lead the National Nordic Museum into the future. In his last role, as the founding Executive Director of the Museum of The Future in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, he was responsible for creating a new museum designed to inspire guests to learn, explore, and actively participate in building a better future. Since opening in 2022, MOTF welcomed over 1.2 million guests a year from 182 countries with tickets continuously sold out for 3 years. This makes the Museum of the Future the most successful new museum ever built.

Throughout his career, Lāth has been at the forefront of technology and museum practice. At the University of New Mexico’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, he created exhibitions while completing his degree in Cultural Anthropology. From there, Lāth’s interest in interactive design and engineering led him to becoming an exhibit designer and project manager at the Please Touch Children’s Museum in Philadelphia as well as the Franklin Institute Science Museum, where the Philadelphia Inquirer labeled him as having “the coolest job in the world”.

Lāth’s experience in the private sector includes 11 years in roles developing interactive and media-based experience for museums and corporate installations of all kinds. He completed innovative projects across North America while at Lynch Exhibits and Art Guild Inc., in New Jersey. He rose to Vice President for Museums and Environments at Art Guild and led the overall operations of the company, with facilities in three states.

From 2012 to 2015, Lāth held the position of Vice President of Exhibits and Content Development, at The Tech Museum of Innovation in Silicon Valley. Under his leadership The Tech was revitalized under a $60M capital campaign that refreshed the building and replaced all core exhibitions. In 2015, The Tech was awarded the highest honor an American museum can achieve: a National Medal for Museum and Library Service.

Before his directorship at the Museum of the Future, he was a Founding Executive Director of Living Computers: Museum + Labs here in Seattle, Washington, a project initiated by Microsoft Co-Founder Paul G. Allen. While there, Smithsonian Magazine labeled him as having “the coolest job in the world”.

Lāth has served on the boards of the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME), Future Oriented Museum Synergies (FORMS), the U.S. Chamber of Connection, and is a Noyce Leadership Institute Fellow. He has lectured in graduate programs at the University of Washington and the University of the Arts, where he occupied a Senior Lecturer post. He has also contributed to three books on museums and was a keynote panelist on technology at the 2022 International Council of Museums triannual conference in Prague.

Lāth Carlson was born and raised in Oregon, with his mother’s family being Norwegian immigrants to the PNW, and his father’s family being all Swedish immigrants.  As a student he competed in the United States Skills Olympics in Precision Machining, is a former Master’s National Mountain Bike Champion, and RYA licensed sailing skipper. Lāth lives on Vashon Island with his wife, their two children, and Portuguese Water Dog.