Kimberlee Kihleng

Kimberlee Kihleng has been the executive director of the Guam Humanities Council since 2005. Under her leadership, the council has expanded its partnerships with local and regional organizations, and broadened the scope of its activities to highlight Guam’s diverse cultures, especially in relation to the larger Pacific Islands region. Kihleng has overseen some of the Council’s most ambitious and rewarding programs, including “Writing the Pacific: Albert Wendt Comes to Guam,” “Dance and Identity in the Pacific,” four Smithsonian Institution Museum on Main Street exhibit tours, NEH “We the People” projects, “8,000, How Will It Change Our Lives: Community Conversations on the US Military Buildup on Guam,” “The Micronesian Question: Issues of Identity, Migration, and Belonging on Guam,” and “I Tano yan I Tasi, Land and Sea: Ecological Literacy on the US Pacific Island of Guam.”

Prior to her current position at the council, Kihleng served as the executive director of Mission Houses Museum, a fully accredited history museum and national historic landmark in Honolulu’s Capitol District focusing on Hawaiian and Pacific history, culture and art. From 1997 to 2000, Kihleng was the visiting scholar in Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam, as well as coordinator of the Women and Gender Studies Program.

Kihleng, a Fulbright Scholar, has carried out long-term ethnographic research in Pohnpei Island, Federated States of Micronesia, and short-term ethnographic studies in the Republic of Palau.