Emily Mello
Emily Mello brings more than two decades of leadership experience to her new role in Philadelphia. Most recently, she served as the Mayer Senior Director of Learning and Public Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2023–25), where she led a large team overseeing a diverse portfolio and revived many programs to achieve full attendance for the first time since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Previously, as Director of Foundation Planning and Special Projects (2022–23) for artist Simone Leigh, she collaborated to gather over 700 attendees and 70 presenters as a key member of the project team for Loophole of Retreat: Venice (2022), a three-day convening held during Leigh’s U.S. Pavilion exhibition at the 59th Venice Biennale.
As Senior Associate Director of Education at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York (2015–22), she launched the annual Art and Social Justice Residency and Exhibition, organizing seven projects with commissioned installations, publications, and extensive programming as the series’ lead curator. Artists included Simone Leigh, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, The Black School, and Ensayos among others. At the New Museum, she expanded youth and adult community partner programs, with an emphasis on restorative justice, including the launch of the arts-based Project Reset, a pre-arraignment diversion initiative created in partnership with the Center for Justice Innovation and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
As Deputy Director for Education and Public Programs, Mello established the vision for engagement at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) during a major capital campaign and transition to a new building (2011–15). She strategically planned, fundraised, and implemented complex budgets—including a $10 million Knight Foundation endowment to create and provide free access to arts education for an entire grade-level in partnership with Miami Dade County Public Schools—to quadruple program staff and offerings for youth and adults. Earlier in her career, she held positions at the Neuberger Museum, Purchase College, the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati.
Mello holds a certificate from the Aspen Institute Seminar for Artist-Endowed Foundation Leaders, an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a B.A. in English and Art History from Mount Holyoke College.
