Jessica Levin Martinez

Jessica Levin Martinez is the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. She is a leading advocate for museum-based interdisciplinary teaching with global collections. Before joining Cornell in 2019, she directed academic and public programs at Harvard Art Museums and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. Jessica has taught museum practice and art history at George Washington University, University of Chicago, and University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Her exhibition Clay—Modeling African Design, co-curated with Suzanne Preston Blier, is at Harvard Art Museums through 2022. She has investigated Nazi-looted artworks in Prague, Czech Republic, and Bratislava, Slovakia, and serves on the African Art Task Force of the Association of Art Museum Directors. She holds a Ph.D. in History of Art & Architecture from Harvard University.