Zhiyue Chen (’26) was selected as the Visitor Studies Association Student of Promise and received a scholarship that will allow her to attend the VSA conference this summer. Museology Communications and Marketing Assistant Xavier Lucas-Cooper (’27) spoke with Zhiyue about how her thesis work ties into the VSA conference and museum evaluation.
Was there a specific idea or theme you touched on in your thesis on Chinese-language interpretation that made attending this conference feel especially necessary or compelling?
Yes. One idea that made this conference feel especially meaningful to me is the question of methodology: how do we study visitor experiences across language and cultural difference in a way that is both rigorous and humane?
This year’s VSA conference focuses on applied methodologies and practical approaches to visitor studies—tools that help us better understand and advocate for visitors and communities. That resonates deeply with my thesis. My research focuses on Chinese-speaking visitors in U.S. art museums. Chinese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the United States, yet Chinese-speaking visitors’ experiences are still rarely centered in museum evaluation or visitor research. Their voices are often present in museum spaces but not always heard in institutional knowledge-making.
Through my own research process, I learned that studying another linguistic or cultural community is not simply a matter of translating interview questions. Recruitment, trust-building, interview dynamics, and interpretation of meaning all become more complex. I tried to develop more reciprocal ways of interviewing participants, but I often felt like I was walking into an underexplored field without a clear map.
That is why attending VSA feels so compelling. I want to learn how more experienced visitor studies professionals approach these questions, and I also hope to bring my own research into conversation with them. I see the conference as a place to refine my methods, ask better questions, and make my future research more thoughtful and human centered.
Multilingual interpretation often sits at the intersection of design, education, and equity. How did you think about those intersections in your thesis, and what kinds of professional practices or models are you hoping to observe or compare at the conference?
My thesis is a phenomenological study, so rather than beginning from one institution’s perspective, I try to understand museum interpretation from the visitor’s lived experiences. I am interested in how Chinese-speaking visitors feel belonging and make meaning in U.S. art museums: what helps them feel oriented, what makes them feel excluded, and what allows them to feel emotionally connected.
So just like how you framed this question, in that sense, multilingual interpretation is not only a design question, or only an educational question, or only an equity question. It is all three at once. Design shapes what resources are visible and usable. Education shapes how unfamiliar cultural or historical content is explained. Equity asks who is imagined as a legitimate museum visitor in the first place.
At AAM, I had the chance to speak with several visitor studies professionals about my research. We joked that my thesis is, in some ways, proving something many people already intuitively know: language matters. But the harder question is what comes next. How do we take living, complex visitor voices and translate them into institutional decisions—into interpretation, design, staffing, evaluation, and long-term planning?
That is what I hope to explore at VSA. I want to observe how other researchers and practitioners move from visitor insight to institutional action. I am especially interested in models that keep visitor voices complex and human, rather than simplifying them too quickly into a checklist or recommendation.
Are there aspects of the museum field you’re still trying to “feel out” or better understand as you prepare to graduate? How does this conference fit into that process?
Definitely. As I prepare to graduate, I am still trying to better understand how visitor studies and evaluation look across different kinds of institutions. Museums vary so much in their collections, missions, audiences, budgets, staff capacity, and geographic contexts… A large art museum, a zoo, a community museum, and a science center may all care deeply about visitors, but the way they approach engagement and evaluation can be very different.
As someone still early in my career, I have had wonderful opportunities to work with a few institutions, but I know I cannot fully understand the field through my own experiences alone. That is why a conference like VSA feels so valuable. It brings together people who are asking similar questions in very different contexts. I can learn not only from formal sessions, but also from conversations with people working in institutions I may never otherwise encounter.
There is also something personally meaningful about that. My thesis is partly about belonging, about how people find connection in spaces where they may not always feel fully seen. I think professional belonging works in a similar way. Being in a room with others who care deeply about visitor experience, evaluation, and community feels both intellectually exciting and personally supportive. It helps me imagine where I might belong in the field after graduation.
Looking ahead to your future career, how do you see this moment of your thesis work meshing with this conference informing the trajectory of your efforts in museums?
This moment feels like an important transition point for me. My thesis has helped me understand that the questions I care about, things like language, belonging, interpretation, and visitor experience, are not separate from museum practice. They are central to how museums build relationships with the publics they hope to serve.
To be honest, I know that I and the communities I care about are not always the most centered voices in the museum field. But I have also been fortunate to find so many mentors, colleagues, and institutions that are open, generous, and willing to make space for these questions. That has encouraged me to keep moving toward public-facing museum work, especially in interpretation, evaluation, and community engagement.
I want my future work to help museums listen more carefully to visitors whose experiences may otherwise remain invisible. At the same time, I know passion is not enough. I need stronger methods, broader frameworks, and more exposure to how others in the field are doing this work well. VSA feels like a place where my thesis questions can meet a larger professional community.
I am deeply grateful for this scholarship opportunity, for the support from our program, and for the trust of the people who participated in my research. I hope this conference will help me grow into a museum professional who can carry that trust responsibly into future work.