Wonderful Women Wednesday: Joy Columbus

Each week, the Archives features a woman who has been a groundbreaker at the Smithsonian, past or present, in a series titled Wonderful Women Wednesday.

In 2020, Joy Columbus, née Kaminsky, was appointed director, the fifth in its history, of Smithsonian Gardens. 

In 2018, Columbus became the vice president of horticulture at the Houston Botanic Garden, where she built the horticulture team and oversaw plant conservation and landscape management. She has twenty years of experience in public gardens at sites in New York, Illinois, Ohio, and Texas.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in botany and horticulture from Miami University of Ohio and her master’s degree in biology from John Carroll University. 

Close-up photograph of Columbus.

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