Dr. Siggers, who until July was vice president for programs, education and content communication at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, said he aims to triple the Penn Museum’s current number of visitors, about 250,000 a year, within 10 years, and to raise the appeal of its contents by highlighting their relevance to modern life.

A current show, for example, draws on recent speculation in the news media that the Mayan calendar indicates an apocalypse in December 2012. The show debunks that idea but uses the opportunity to educate visitors about many aspects of Mayan civilization, including its intricate calendars, and does so using technology like interactive screens that invite visitors to create their own Mayan names.

The museum could also focus on climate change by using its collection and expertise to tell the story of how, some 10,000 years ago in the Levant, in the Middle East, overgrazing by goats removed topsoil, causing a change in the microclimate, Dr. Siggers said.

Or the collections could be used to create thematically linked exhibitions, he said, like one that would identify common features between current Western civilization and those of Greece, Rome and Mesopotamia.