Susan E. Cahan

Susan E. Cahan is an art historian, educator, and curator. She currently serves as the Dean of the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously, she served as Associate Dean for the Arts at Yale College and as the Des Lee Endowed Professor in Contemporary Art at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She also taught at Bard College and the University of California, Los Angeles, and directed programs at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Peter Norton Family Foundation.

A specialist in contemporary art, institutional critique, and the history of museums, Dean Cahan’s recent book, Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power (2016) details the social and institutional forces that aided and impeded racial equity in New York City art museums in the 1960s and 1970s. Her other published works include “The Wonder Years” in Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History (2009); I Remember Heaven: Jim Hodges and Andy Warhol (2007); and Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education (1996).

Dean Cahan serves NASAD as a visiting evaluator. She was first elected to the Board of Directors in 2019.

Dean Cahan holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Art History degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and English degree from Tufts University.