Lowery Stokes Sims of Baltimore, a specialist in contemporary art, craft, and design, has served on the education and curatorial staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1972–99) and as executive director and president of The Studio Museum in Harlem (2000–2007), retiring as Curator Emerita from the Museum of Arts and Design (2007–2015).  

More recently she has worked as an independent curator and consultant for numerous exhibitions at various institutions, including the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio; Craft Contemporary in Los Angeles; and the Baltimore Museum of Art. She was visiting professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (2018–2020), and has been appointed the 2021–2022 Kress-Beinecke Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 

“An internationally-respected specialist in modern and contemporary art, Lowery Stokes Sims has a long and successful career, focusing her gaze on African, Latino, Native, and Asian-American artists at a time when few curators did,” said ACC Awards Committee Member Tina Oldknow. “Her exhibitions and her writings have contributed new, important, and essential scholarship to the field of contemporary craft.”