Juliana Barton

Juliana Rowen Barton (she/her) is a historian, curator, and educator invested in institutional change toward social justice and equity. Through her research and curatorial projects, she explores the confluence of race, gender, and design. 

In addition to teaching at RISD, she is co-director of the Center for the Arts at Northeastern University, where she oversees interdisciplinary arts programming including the university’s contemporary art space Gallery 360. She also co-organizes Designing Motherhood, a first-of-its-kind book/exhibition series and open-source curriculum project that explores design and the arc of human reproduction. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards and fellowships, including from the Graham Foundation, CASVA, ACLS, the Center for Curatorial Leadership, and the Mellon Foundation. 

Previously, she was an inaugural ACLS Leading Edge Fellow working with the Center for Craft to develop a portfolio of virtual community engagement initiatives intended to increase the value and relevance of craft to society. From 2017–19, she worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), first as the Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Design and later as a part of the curatorial team for Designs for Different Futures (2019–20). While at the PMA, she also co-organized Design in Revolution (2018). 

She has also worked on exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Barnes Foundation, Mütter Museum, Center for Architecture/American Institute of Architects New York Chapter, ArkDes, and Museum of Arts and Design. In addition, she has been a lecturer at the Weitzman School of Design, where she taught critical theory of race and architecture, and at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, where she teaches curatorial studies. 

Born in New York City and raised in Charlottesville, VA, she received her BA in Art History and American Studies with highest distinction from the University of Virginia and her MA and PhD in the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania. She comes from a family of architects and spends her free time in the pottery studio and the kitchen.