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1998 Recipient: Ralph Appelbaum

Ralph Appelbaum has 25 years of involvement in every facet of museum and exhibition design. His renowned work for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and for the American Museum of Natural History has won every major design award, and he is a frequent lecturer at local, national, and international conferences on a wide variety of issues related to museum design.

After graduating from Pratt Institute with a Bachelor of Industrial Design degree, Mr. Appelbaum spent several years in South America with the Peace Corps and with the U.S. AID mission as design adviser to southern Peru. He then became vice president of exhibitions for Robert P. Gersin Associates, and later for Raymond Loewy International, before founding Ralph Appelbaum Associates in 1978.

A recipient of the Presidential Award for Design Excellence for his work at the Holocaust Museum, Mr. Appelbaum was also granted an honorary doctorate by the Massachusetts College of Art. He has served as an adjunct associate professor since 1985 in the Museum Studies Program, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, New York University, and has also taught at Pratt Institute.

Mr. Appelbaum currently directs RAA’s undertakings, and retains daily involvement in selected commissions