Paul Siboroski is the Director of Exhibits at the Fleet Science Center. In his role, Paul oversees the Fleet’s interactive exhibitions and works closely with the education and other departments to connect visitors to the power of science. April was Paul’s anniversary month, marking 18 years since he joined the Fleet as Director of Exhibits in 2001!

How did you become director of exhibits at the Fleet Science Center?
I’ve been with the Fleet for 18 years, I was actually working for another science museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where I was also director of exhibits when the position opened up here. Prior to that science museum I was curator of exhibits at a natural history museum in Alabama, so I’ve been in exhibits for about 25 years.

What have you enjoyed most about working with exhibits?
What I like most is definitely that I’m always learning something new. Whether I’m learning about stem cells or mathematics or any kind of physics, that opportunity to learn new things and talk and work with people that are leading the way in their research is really something.

What is the most interesting part of your job?
We’ve been focusing a lot on the visitor experience and what kind of things people expect when they visit a science center. What’s really interesting is learning about what visitors want and how they interact with the exhibits because it’s a different perspective.

In the spirit of One Park – One Team, how important is collaboration in your role?
It’s critical! I don’t know everything and I cannot know everything. Like I mentioned before I learn new things anytime we’re developing a new program or an exhibit. For example, the augmented reality sandbox in the Pause|Play exhibit required several experts with different skill sets like carpentry, woodworking, computer programming, and even educators to help us develop the content. Everything we do has to be collaborative, otherwise we’re selling ourselves short and missing out on all of the amazing resources we have here.

Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind the Pause|Play exhibition?
Pause|Play kind of came out of necessity, we had an open time slot for that space and so I thought we could build something because we hadn’t done that in a while. We really wanted to address visitors’ interests and expectations, and we wanted it to be new for visitors and us, and engaging for both children and adults. So it was a challenging concept to first build around the visitor experience, and then incorporate the science.

What have you enjoyed most about working in Balboa Park?
Well, being in Balboa Park! I like the location and I love being in the Park, I almost feel more connected to San Diego just being here because it’s such a great reflection of our city.

What do you like to do outside of work?
I’m traveling more lately and I enjoy trying and especially eating new foods so I’ve taught myself to cook. I also enjoy gardening from my balcony, I have the Rose Garden here to use as a reference to plant my own roses and it’s perfect. When they trim the roses here, I’ll trim them at home, and so on!

What is your favorite book, TV show, movie or musical artist/album/song?
I blame my husband because we binge watch shows on Netflix and Amazon all the time. I enjoy limited series because I can really get into them all at once or enjoy them a little at a time so that’s great. The Crown, is one of my favorite shows and I binged that show for hours, I had to know everything!

What is your favorite spot in Balboa Park?
I have to go with the Rose Garden, it’s so close to us at the Fleet so I can spend a lot of time walking through there or I can spend a quick 10-minute break. It’s not the same in the winter when the roses are clipped back but that’s okay, I like that you can see the time of year reflected in the flowers.