SYRACUSE, NY.- The Everson Museum of Art announced that Elizabeth Dunbar will be assuming the position of Executive Director by January 1, 2015. Dunbar was selected after an eight-month long search led by Gary Grossman, Everson Museum of Art Board President, and a committee of Everson Trustees.

Dunbar has nearly 15 years’ museum senior management experience. Most recently, she served as Executive Director of DiverseWorks in Houston, Texas, where she led an institutional turnaround by articulating a new vision, stabilizing and enhancing finances, and galvanizing community support. Prior to her position at DiverseWorks, Dunbar served as the Associate Director of Arthouse (now the Contemporary Austin) in Austin, Texas. Dunbar has also held curatorial positions at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.

“We look forward to Elizabeth joining us at the Everson, and leading us in making significant strides toward the Museum’s major goals,” said Grossman. “Elizabeth brings to the Everson diverse experience in exhibition development and community engagement, and exciting strategies to keep museums relevant in a changing world, which will help redefine the Everson’s reputation as a community art museum of international note.”

Dunbar comes to the Everson at a time of great opportunity. Since the beginning of 2014, the Everson Board and staff have worked to successfully overcome fiscal challenges, and the Museum is now poised for future growth and new vision. “The Everson is one of the country’s great art institutions and I am deeply honored to join it as it embarks on its exciting next chapter,” said Dunbar. “I am eager to get started and help make the museum an even more vital and inspirational force in the life of the city and the lives of its residents.”

Dunbar replaces Steven Kern, who served the museum as Executive Director for five years and ushered in successes through annual traveling exhibitions such as “Turner to Cezanne” in 2009 to “The Art of Video Games” in 2013. Kern left the Everson in early 2014 to assume the position of Director and CEO of the Newark Museum in New Jersey.

“Elizabeth Dunbar will be the tenth director of the Everson in its over 100 year history,” said Grossman. “It is with great excitement and enthusiasm that we anticipate the vision Elizabeth will bring to this treasured institution.”

Originally from San Mateo, California, Elizabeth Dunbar was raised in the Bay Area and later in Texas. She received BAs in Art History and French from Texas Tech University and MAs in Museum Studies and Art History from The City University of New York, City College, where her academic studies focused on 19th and 20th century American and European art. She served as Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art and was a key member of the curatorial team for the landmark exhibition The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000. She later served as Chief Curator at the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. During her six years in the Midwest, she built significant collections of modern and contemporary works, organized several major exhibitions of emerging and mid-career artists, and authored numerous exhibition catalogues and publications. Important projects include those by internationally-acclaimed video artists Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler, installation artist Phoebe Washburn, photographer Nikki S. Lee, and sculptor Tony Feher, among many others. Her 2007 exhibition Dario Robleto: Alloy of Love traveled to the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, and the accompanying monograph received an award from the American Association of Museums. Dunbar later joined Arthouse (now the Contemporary Austin) as its first curator and eventually became Associate Director. Under her curatorial guidance, the organization helped launch the careers of numerous artists from around the globe. For the last three years Dunbar has served as Executive Director of DiverseWorks, a nationally-renowned multidisciplinary arts center located in Houston. During her tenure, Dunbar has overseen the organization's relocation to a new space, the unveiling of a new graphic identity and website, and a reinvigorated artistic program that emphasizes commissioning international artists to create new works across disciplines and communities. In addition to organizing more than 75 projects over her career, Dunbar is a frequent writer and speaker on contemporary art practice. She serves on the national advisory boards of Cannonball in Miami, the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; has been a panelist and reviewer for Creative Capital, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Performance Network, among many other organizations; and has been a visiting lecturer and critic at Cornell University, Cranbrook Academy of Art, and the University of Texas, among several other academic institutions. An active volunteer and foster for the animal welfare organization Barrio Dogs, Dunbar lives in Houston with her husband Michael, 5-year old son Sam, and a chocolate lab puppy named Obi Wan.