Barbara Thiele

Born in Ansbach in 1979, Barbara Thiele studied comparative literature, art history, and sociology in Mainz, Lund, and Berlin. After completing her master’s degree, she became deputy head of the project to set up an Open Digital Library at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, within the collaborative research center Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of Artistic Limits, hosted by the Free University Berlin. 

This was followed by training at the academic publisher Dietrich Reimer Verlag. From 2008 to 2015, Barbara Thiele helped to build up the successful print-on-demand and self-publishing platform epubli and ultimately led it as managing director with responsibility for a team of thirty people in the departments product, IT, marketing, press, and author support.

As head of Digital & Publishing at the JMB, Thiele and her team worked with the exhibition curators to develop interactive media stations including Family Album, Antisemitism Debate Room, and Topography of Violence in the JMB core exhibition and the interactive audio play and quest game Listen Up! at the Children’s World ANOHA.

She was also responsible for exhibition catalogs, the JMB Journal, and the websites of the JMB and ANOHA, as well as the JMB app, which guides visitors through the core exhibition in seven languages, and the community project Jewish Places, which invites users to add their own Jewish sites to an interactive map. In 2022, Ms. Thiele brought together a digital task force to draw up a digital strategy that is now being implemented right across the museum.

At the Jewish Museum Berlin, Barbara Thiele is now responsible for public engagement and digital transformation, covering the departments Academy, Education, Digital & Publishing, Children’s World ANOHA, Visitor Experience & Research, and Events Management.