Des Moines, Iowa, United States
Scholar, curator, and executive with 26 years of experience at civic and university art museums. I am currently John and Mary Pappajohn Director and CEO of the Des Moines Art Center, a multi-venue art museum, art school, and sculpture park in the capital city of Iowa that welcomes on average 300,000 visitors annually. I direct a team of 95 full- and part-time employees and a large corps of docent volunteers and teaching artists, providing strategic, creative, operational, and financial leadership. In addition to stewarding a remarkable suite of buildings by Eliel Saarinen, I. M. Pei, and Richard Meier, I am responsible for managing a collection of over 6800 works of art and overseeing an innovative exhibition program as well as robust collaborations with schools, non-profits, and social service organizations. Before arriving in Des Moines, I worked for 23 years as a curator of modern and contemporary art at museums in Houston, Austin, Princeton, and New York, most recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art.