STANFORD, CA.- Connie Wolf, director of the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, announces the appointment of Alison Gass to a newly created senior management positions. Gass begins serving as Associate Director for Collections, Exhibitions, and Curatorial Affairs on August 1, 2014. “I am thrilled to have Ali Gass on board,” said Wolf. “She is highly-regarded as a leading curator of contemporary art and brings extensive experience and wonderful energy. In her new role at the Cantor, Ali will be a leader in overseeing the museum’s extensive exhibitions and collections programs including collection development and exhibition planning. Ali will manage a team that includes seasoned curators, expert registrars, conservators, technical staff, and others. In addition, we are delighted that Ali will also continue her work as a visionary curator.”

“I am elated to be joining Connie Wolf and the Cantor’s terrific team at this dynamic time for the arts at Stanford,” asserted Gass. “I believe deeply in the importance of university art museums, and the Cantor—with the extraordinary Stanford community as its immediate audience and potential collaborator—is beautifully poised for exciting prospects. This opportunity to help shape the next phase of the exhibitions and acquisitions program at the Cantor allows me to continue a deep focus on building important museum programming in a university context. And the opportunity is sweetened by returning to the Bay Area—an arts community I know and love and the place that really feels like home.”

Gass, who was featured in Carol Vogel’s 2010 New York Times article “The New Guard of Curators Step Up,” began her curatorial career at the Jewish Museum in New York City, then became an Assistant Curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. At SFMOMA Gass worked on the SECA exhibitions, the New Work series, the Luc Tuymans retrospective, and Paul Klee’s Cubism exhibition, among others. Most recently, she served as Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, where she helped launch the new building and established a curatorial program that connects to the faculty and students across the university. Gass was an undergraduate at Columbia University where she graduated magna cum laude in art history. She received her MA in art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

This new position is part of a Wolf’s plan to create a top-level management team. Gass will join Deputy Director Mona Duggan and Kathleen Stueck. Wolf hired Stueck in 2013 to fill the new position of Associate Director for Finance and Operations. Stueck brings more than 20 years of arts and educational administration leadership to her work at the Cantor. Duggan, promoted to her current post in 2013, has provided distinguished service to Stanford and the museum for decades. Wolf has also created the senior management position of Associate Director for Academic and Public Engagement and is actively searching to fill it.