Yao-Fen You is new Acting Director of the Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific America Center

She will assume her new role Feb 14.

Under Secretary for Museums and Culture Kevin Gover announced last week that Yao-Fen You, senior curator and head of product design and decorative arts at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, will assume the role at APAC, effective today. 

 “Yao-Fen’s professional and scholarly experience makes her an ideal candidate to lead APAC,” Gover said. “A member of the 2021 Russell E. Palmer Leadership Development program, she has become a reliable and effective leader at CHSDM and across the Smithsonian in a short period,” he continued. Since joining CHSDM in 2019, she has been critical in securing almost three quarters of a million dollars in funding for the museum, for both acquisitions and critical collections care. In addition to serving as Acting Deputy Director of Curatorial at CHSDM since May 2020, she helped develop the Art Museums Professional Accomplishments Evaluation Committee guidelines and currently chairs the Congress of Scholars. She also has served as a member of the SI Working Group for Ethical Returns. In 2021, she launched “In Search of Asian American/Pacific Islander Architects and Designers” at CHSDM in partnership with the Asian American and Diasporic Architectural History Affiliate Group of the Society of Architectural Historians. This ongoing project received federal support from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by APAC. We are delighted that she is willing to take on the responsibility of Acting Director of APAC.

A frequent author and invited speaker, Yao-Fen has held curatorial positions at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Harvard Art Museums, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. She earned her PhD in the history of art from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and her BA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Gover also thanked Theodore S. Gonzalves, who has served as interim director for the past year and will return to his responsibilities as curator in the National Museum of American History’s Division of Cultural and Community Life and a Smithsonian Senior Fellow. 

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