Vote for your favorite Carnegie Museums treasure! This fall, in honor of Carnegie Museums’ 120th birthday, you’ll have a chance to cast your votes for your favorite museum object in the first-ever Clash of the Carnegies. In a spirited, bracketstyle competition, each of the four Carnegie Museums are pitting some of their most beloved artifacts and exhibits against each other. Love Dippy? Wild about Warhol’s Silver Clouds? Impressed by the Impressionists? Blown away by the Buhl telescope? Get in on the fun and vote! The online poll begins October 19 and runs through November 8. The winner will be announced at a 120th birthday party at Carnegie Museums in Oakland on November 14—with prizes for one lucky voter and bragging rights for the winning museum!

Pittsburgh has long been a hub for cutting-edge medicine and careers in the health sciences. So it’s only fitting that Carnegie Science Center, the region’s leader in informal science education, and Allegheny Health Network, one of the region’s largest hospital systems, team up to develop BodyTech, a major science and health initiative all about how the human body works. Already enlightening Science Center audiences: BodyStage, a live demonstration theater, and Anatomy Adventure, a new traveling science show that goes into schools to take kids on a virtual voyage through the body’s bloodstream, with live demonstrations about how the body’s internal organs function. Next up: BodyWorks, a permanent exhibit chock-full of interactive experiences slated to open at the Science Center next fall. “BodyTech is a wonderful example of two organizations deeply committed to the health and vitality of our region coming together to invest in its future,” says John Paul, president and CEO of Allegheny Health Network.

Five hundred area school-aged girls, most of whom don’t have regular access to cultural institutions, will soon count themselves as Carnegie Museums members. Declaring November 14 Carnegie Legacy Day, Carnegie Museum of Art’s Women’s Committee will mark the occasion by welcoming 500 girls in third through 12th grades and their families to the Oakland museums for a day of programming designed especially for them. As part of the event, each young woman will receive a one-year dual membership to Carnegie Museums. The Women’s Committee partnered with key community organizations to invite girls from areas underserved by arts organizations.

Tanya Habjouqa, Untitled, from the series Women of Gaza, 2009, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum purchase with general funds and the Horace W. Goldsmith Fund for Photography

- Grace of Augusta, Georgia, on the series Women of Gaza. Grace is one of hundreds of visitors who provided feedback on She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World, on view at the Museum of Art through September 28.

The number of students across 11 states and the District of Columbia now being impacted by the Carnegie STEM Excellence Pathway, a self-assessment and continuous-improvement tool developed by Carnegie Science Center and partners to help schools define and gauge the quality of their science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs.

Equally equipped to discuss environmental science, opera, and museum best practices, Eric Dorfman seems a perfect fit to head Carnegie Museum of Natural History. A native of California, the seasoned museum professional spent the last 14 years in New Zealand, six as director of the country’s Whanganui Regional Museum and Ward Observatory. Under his leadership, annual visitation increased from 19,000 visitors to 74,000 in four years. He attributes the increase to getting out into the community to learn what topics mattered to the public.

“Eric’s outstanding work at the Whanganui Museum demonstrates all of the values of innovation, audience focus, social inclusiveness, and business acumen that are central to our aspirations for Carnegie Museums,” says Jo Ellen Parker, president of Carnegie Museums.

A field biologist by training, Dorfman has served as principal regional scientist for New Zealand’s department of conservation, and senior manager of science development at New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa. He was also executive director of Eklektus Inc., a company that developed and implemented major exhibits for clients such as The Australian Museum and the New Zealand Post.

“The thing that is so exciting about joining Carnegie Museums is that there’s already so much to be excited about,” says Dorfman. “The nexus of art and science is something that is being explored today in exciting ways. It’s about taking something fantastic and making it even better.”