New Exploratorium boss from IDEO design firm

The Exploratorium, San Francisco’s pioneering hands-on science museum, has a new leader right out of Silicon Valley’s high-tech design world.

Directors of the 47-year-old museum said Wednesday that Chris Flink, a partner at Ideo, an Palo Alto international design firm, will become the institution’s new executive director.

George Cogan, chairman of the Exploratorium’s board of directors, said Flink’s appointment was the result of a months-long international search for a leader who would “redefine what it means to be a science center in the 21st century.”

Flink, 44, has been a partner at Ideo for 18 years and has headed the firm’s “Consumer Experience Design” practice.