As the country approaches a milestone 250th anniversary, it is both a time for reflecting on the past, and a time to envision the future. The National Air and Space Museum is featuring a new exhibition titled Futures in Space, one of five galleries that have been in the works since 2018. In June of 2023, Cellphone: Unseen Connections opened at the National Museum of Natural History, tracing the evolution of the cellphone and its influence on our lives.

Join Joshua Bell, cultural anthropologist and curator of globalization at the National Museum of Natural History, and Andrew Meade McGee, curator of computing and historian of science and technology at the National Air and Space Museum, for a behind-the-scenes glimpse into their work curating future-forward projects at the Smithsonian and their thoughts on what the future might hold. Assistant Under Secretary for Research Programs and Partnerships Javier Mateo-Vega will moderate.