Volunteer Profile: Jane Chang

2018 Volunteer of the Year Jane Chang with Meghan Schiedel, The Discovery’s Curriculum Developer

Jane Chang is a valuable member of The Discovery family. Since she became a volunteer in September 2016, Jane has dedicated an astonishing 1,500+ service hours to the museum. In fact, she is the fastest person to achieve 1,500 hours of volunteer time since the museum opened in 2011. Jane dedicates her time at the museum to creating the monthly activity calendar for one of our most popular galleries, Art Alcove, the museum’s art space.

Born in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jane earned a degree in Art and Design from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. After graduation, Jane began a career in merchandise presentation for several large department stores in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, designing window and interior product displays. In addition to her work in merchandise presentation, Jane has worked in film and print advertising and was a professional sailmaker in Honolulu, Portland, Seattle, Long Island, Newport, Rhode Island, and Minden, Nevada. When Jane isn’t donating her time to The Discovery, she enjoys knitting, gardening, and traveling the world.

Jane spends her volunteer time at The Discovery creating fun and engaging activities for visitors to enjoy in Art Alcove, The Discovery’s art space, where art informs science, and science informs art. Her favorite thing about volunteering at The Discovery is the positive atmosphere and staff, who she describes as, “supportive and generous.” Overall, Jane enjoys giving back to the community by helping to create a space that is engaging for visitors of all ages.

Jane was recognized as The Discovery’s “Volunteer of the Year” in April for her outstanding service over the past year. We are very grateful to have volunteers like Jane who dedicate their time to furthering our mission in the Northern Nevada community.

The Discovery’s Volunteer Program recognizes the value of service and encourages members of our community to participate in activities that engage and inspire our visitors. Over the last six years, The Discovery has hosted nearly 1,100 volunteers who have served over 72,000 hours! Furthermore, our volunteers have contributed over $1.6 million in service value to support the museum, including curriculum development, event support, and visitor engagement.

In 2017 alone, 190 volunteers dedicated more than 11,300 hours of their time in support of The Discovery’s mission to bring hands-on informal science education to visitors of all ages.

Volunteers can support The Discovery in many ways. To find out how you can become a volunteer, check out the volunteer page of our website.