CV
EDUCATION
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2015-2021)
PhD, American Culture
MA, American Culture
Harvard University (2020-2021)
Predoctoral Fellowship, History
Williams College (2011-2015)
Bachelor of Arts, English and Political Science
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
DC Commission On The Arts And Humanities
Curator (2023-Present)
Grant manager of three grant programs (totaling over $450,000) for artists using DC Government funds: The Art Bank Program, The Art Exhibition Grant, and The Juried Exhibition Grant.
Curator and lead project manager of the DC government’s permanent art gallery, I St. Galleries. Manage a four show calendar year, Oversee gallery public outreach efforts, including educational programming, tours, and artist talks to enhance public understanding and appreciation of the arts.
Georgetown University
Lecturer and Core Faculty, MA in Engaged and Public Humanities (2021-Present)
Core and founding faculty, charged with programmatic growth and long term vision for the field of the scholarly public humanities.
Developed two original courses as the primary instructor of record; lead weekly discussions and guest lectures, hold office hours, and grade papers and projects. Serve as liaison for student networking and internship needs.
Engaged Public Humanities 5503: Humanities in the World
Engaged Public Humanities 5508: Internship I
National Humanities Alliance
Project Director, Humanities For All (2020-2023)
Program director of a Mellon Foundation-funded project, Humanities for All, an initiative of the lobbying arm of the National Endowment for the Humanities which documents and promotes publicly engaged humanities work in U.S. higher education.
Led ideation, content creation, and production of the Humanities for All website, database, blog, and newsletter. Produced social media content, webinar series, conference events, email newsletters, and mass communications for general and specialized audiences. Over 24k unique users on Humanities for All website from August 2020-May 2022.
Coedited The Routledge Companion to the Publicly Engaged Humanities (2024), including organizing the contributions of 25 chapter authors and communications with an editorial advisory board.
The New York Times
Contracted Archival Researcher and Writer (April-June 2021, January- May 2024)
Led research team in archival research, obtaining image permissions, and project outlining, leading to the publication of “The Dinner Party That Started The Harlem Renaissance,” co-written by Veronica Chambers and Dr. Michelle May-Curry, published in the New York Times March 21, 2024.
Harvard University
Predoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant to Dr. Tiya Miles (2015-2021)
Fact-checked, formatted, and completed archival research for All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, awarded the 2021 National Book Award for Non-Fiction.
Co-curated “Carrying Capacity,” a visual essay in All that She Carried that places the story of Ashley’s sack in conversation with the works of contemporary Black artists.
History Studio
Contracted Consultant (Oct 2021-Nov 2021)
Conducted a comprehensive manuscript review under a NDA to assess cultural sensitivity, authenticity, and historical accuracy.
Carr Center
Independent Scholar, 2018-2019
Mounted two exhibitions with Carr Center resident artist Carrie Mae Weems, including The Spirit That Resides in conjunction with the 2019 Havana, Cuba Biennale and Beyond Space, the inaugural exhibition for the Carr Center Contemporary Gallery in Detroit, MI.
Project-managed and edited the exhibition catalog for the Beyond Space exhibition at the Carr Center Gallery from conception to completion, with the final 100-page book featuring artwork, essays, and poetry from 13 artists.
Curated an educational installation on the photographic depiction of the Loving family for the Beyond Space exhibition.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Tiya Miles and Michelle May-Curry, Ashley and Her Wishing Sack, Penguin Random House/Nancy Paulsen Books for Young Readers (Forthcoming).
Daniel Fisher-Livne and Michelle May-Curry (eds), Routledge Companion to Publicly Engaged Humanities Scholarship, Routledge, Taylor, and Francis (2024).
Articles
Veronica Chambers and Michelle May-Curry, “The Dinner Party That Started the Harlem Renaissance,” The New York Times, March 21, 2024.
Tiya Miles and Michelle May-Curry, “Heirlooms, Reimagined,” The New York Times, June 19, 2022.
Michelle May-Curry, “Beyond ‘Biracial Cool:’ Bill de Blasio and the Visual Politics of the Mixed-Race Family,” American Quarterly, March 2021.
Exhibition Catalogs
Editor-in-Chief and contributing writer, A Toast To The Boogie: Art in the Name of Funk(adelic), DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 2024.
Editor-in-Chief and contributing writer, Beyond Space, Carr Center, 2019
Book Chapters
Michelle May-Curry and Tiya Miles, “Carry Capacity,” in All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, A Black Family Keepsake, Random House (2021).
CURATION AND INTERPRETATION
Curation
Rip! Tear! Collage as Critique (forthcoming, June-August 2026)
DC Art Now 2025 (September 2025)
DC Art Now 2024 (September, 2024)
A Toast To The Boogie: Art In The Name of Funkadelic (June-August 2024)
Thriving Families (March, 2024)
Legacy: Civil Rights at 60 (January 2024)
DC Art Now 2023 (September, 2023)
Jury Panels
Washington Sculptors Group MLK DC Public Library Exhibition Looking Back - Look Forward: Sources of Artistic Inspiration (2025)
DC Reagan National Airport DC Public Schools Artwalk (2025)
Houston International Airport Public Art Acquisition Committee (2024)
Interpretation
Interpretive wall text for “Prints from the Brandywine Workshop and Archives: Creative Communities,” at the Harvard Art Museum, March-July 2022.
Interpretive wall text for Reflections: David Drake's Storage Jar at the Art Institute of Chicago, April-September 2022.
INVITED SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS (selected)
“Reflection and Refraction: Meditations on Family and Photography,” lecture for Creative Mornings at the Rubell Museum (Washington, DC), September 27, 2024.
“Public Engagement, Art, and Humanities for All,” lecture for Texas State University Public History program, April 11, 2023.
“Public Humanities, Art, and the Power of Family Stories” lecture for Ursuline College Rustbelt Humanities Lab, March 16, 2023.
“From First Bud to Bloom: Process, Public Humanities, and Seeding Graduate Training,” keynote presentation for Texas Christian University’s Future of Graduate Studies Symposium, January 18, 2022.
“Repairing and Renewing the Purpose and Practice of Graduate Studies,” panel for Imagining America convening with Teresa Mangum, Ben Reiss, and Ryan McBride, October 13, 2022.
“I Was Gifted a Camera,” invited lecture for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative pan-institutional curatorial committee, October 5, 2022.
“In Conversation: The Clamor of Ornament and The Power of Adornment” with Veronica Chambers, Martha S. Jones, Yao-Fen You, and Michelle May-Curry, The Drawing Center, New York City, 14 September 2022.
Keynote speaker, Scholars and Society Mellon American Council of Learned Societies Fellowships Conference, April 28, 2022.
Guest respondent, Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Grants convening, June 10,2021.
Moderator of “Beyond the Gaze: Writing Multidimensional Black Characters for The Stage and Screen, A Conversation with Maxine Lyle and Katori Hall,” Williams College 62’ Center event series, October 23, 2020.
“Photographing Loving,” lecture given at the inaugural Converge Detroit convening, October 19, 2019.
“That Image Business: Loving v Virginia and The Iconography of Interracialism,” Panelist, Paper presented at the American Studies Association Annual meeting, November 11, 2019.
SCHOLARLY SERVICE (selected)
Grants reviewer, American Council of Learned Societies Sustaining Public Engagement Grant, February 2022
Grants reviewer, Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Grant Program, January 2022
Grants reviewer, Humanities Without Walls Grand Research Challenge, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne, December 2021
American Culture Doctoral Admissions Committee, University of Michigan, 2019
Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians planning committee, 2019-2020
Planning committee for the Critical Visualities Conference, University of Michigan, 2017-2019
Chair of the American Culture African-American Caucus, University of Michigan, 2017-2018
Co-Chair of the Black Humanities Collective, University of Michigan, 2016-2017
SELECTED GRANTS, HONORS, AND AWARDS
Proquest Distinguished Dissertation Award (April 2022)
Edward Bouchet Honors Society (March 2020)
Harvard University Visiting Dissertation Fellowship (September 2019-June 2021)
Carr Center Independent Scholars Fellowship with Resident Artist Carrie Mae Weems (November 2018-November 2019)
Humanities Without Walls Predoctoral Career Diversity Summer Fellowship, UIUC Summer (2018).