Press Release - President Biden Announces Key Appointments to Boards and Commissions

WASHINGTON – Today, President Biden announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to serve in key roles:

• Joan Breier Brodsky, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Susan Lynn Gibbons, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Amy Elizabeth Gilman, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Julius C. Jefferson Jr., Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Cameron Kitchin, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Dipesh Navsaria, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• James G. Neal, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Annie Norman, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Halona Norton-Westbrook, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Allison C. Perkins, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
• Monica Ramirez-Montagut, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board

National Museum and Library Services Board
The National Museum and Library Services Board advises the agency on general policies with respect to the duties, powers, and authority of the Institute of Museum and Library Service relating to museum, library, and information services, as well as the annual selection of National Medals recipients.

Joan Breier Brodsky, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Joan Brodsky holds an A.B. from Syracuse University in Latin and Education and a Masters in Library Science, also from Syracuse. She is a librarian and a book and paper conservator. She serves as a trustee of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois and the Newberry Library in Chicago. Brodsky is on the Board of Visitors of the Syracuse University Library and the Advisory Board of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City and is a member of the Grolier Club in New York City and a life member of the American Library Association. At Syracuse University, she is a founder and sponsor of an annual endowed lecture series and workshop on the conservation of books, paper, photographs, plastics, and other materials maintained by libraries.

Susan Lynn Gibbons, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Susan Gibbons is vice provost for collections and scholarly communication at Yale University, with responsibilities for the university's museums, libraries, university press, and the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage. She was Yale's University Librarian from 2011 to 2020 and has held library positions at the University of Rochester, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Indiana University. She served on the board of the Association of Research Libraries from 2013-2020 and as the board president in 2018-2019. In addition, she has served on the boards of the Center for Research Libraries, ITHAKA, and SAGE Publications. Gibbons holds an M.L.S and an M.A. in history from Indiana University, a professional M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Rochester.

Amy Elizabeth Gilman, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Dr. Amy Gilman joined the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as director in September 2017. Prior to her current role, Gilman spent 12 years at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio, ending as deputy director. Gilman is a progressive leader in the field and an advocate for leveraging and expanding the role of the university art museum on campus, in the community, and in the field – especially as locations to promote experimentation about what it means to be a museum and piloting potential changes in current museum models. Gilman is an alumna of the Getty Leadership Institute. She earned her doctorate in art history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, a Master of Fine Arts in photography from Columbia College in Chicago, and a bachelor's degree in performance studies from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Julius C. Jefferson Jr., Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Julius C. Jefferson Jr. is an active member of the library community and has served in leadership roles at the local, national, and international level. Jefferson is often called upon as an authority to speak on issues of importance to libraries and library workers. He has advocated for improved library services in a number of print and broadcast media outlets and is often sought as a speaker on library-related issues such as diversity, leadership, and professional development. Jefferson currently works for the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress, where he has served in various leadership roles.

Cameron Kitchin, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Cameron Kitchin is the ninth appointed Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum. He has led the museum team, institutional vision, community engagement, collections, exhibitions, and expansive scholarship since 2014. He served as Director of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art from 2008-2014 and led the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (formerly Contemporary Art Center of Virginia) from 2002-2008.

Kitchin is an elected Trustee of the Association of Art Museum Directors and serves on the Board and Executive Committee of ICOM-US, the U.S. national committee of the International Council of Museums. He is a member of the national exhibitions committee of the American Federation of Arts. His prior professional experience includes special projects and strategic planning with the American Alliance of Museums (formerly American Association of Museums) and Senior Associate for museums and cultural organizations with Economics Research Associates. Kitchin holds degrees in art history from Harvard University and business administration from William & Mary. He is a 2008 graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute. Kitchin and his family live in the town of Wyoming, Ohio.

Dipesh Navsaria, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Dipesh Navsaria, M.P.H., M.S.L.I.S., M.D. is a pediatrician working in the public interest. He blends the roles of physician, occasional children's librarian, educator, public health professional, and child health advocate. With graduate degrees in public health, children's librarianship, physician assistant studies, and medicine, he brings together a combination of interests and experience. He is an associate professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and Public Health, as well as a clinical associate professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the School of Human Ecology, both at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has practiced primary care pediatrics in a variety of settings with special interest in underserved populations and continues to practice in outpatient settings. He also works regionally and nationally with Reach Out and Read and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Committed to understanding how basic science can translate into busy primary-care settings via population health concepts and policy initiatives and also be incorporated into transdisciplinary approaches across multiple sectors and schools of thought, Navsaria aims to educate the next generation of those who work with children and families in realizing how their professional roles include being involved in larger concepts of social policy and how they may affect the cognitive and socioemotional development of children for their future benefit. The various ways in which we can influence the environment around children and families — from the very micro to the most macro — to ensure they can flourish and thrive is at the heart of what he does.

James G. Neal, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Jim Neal is University Librarian Emeritus at Columbia University. He has served as a library and technology administrator at several U.S. research universities. He has been an active member of the national and international library community. He has presented at over 500 conferences and has published widely in the library literature. He has focused his professional work in the areas of digital libraries, intellectual freedom, intellectual property, library collaboration, diversity and social justice, and library innovation. He has received numerous awards for his professional leadership and accomplishments, including Honorary Membership in the American Library Association.

Annie Norman, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Dr. Annie Norman is State Librarian of Delaware and Director of the Delaware Division of Libraries. Under her leadership, the Delaware Library Catalog was established; currently 74 participating libraries are sharing 2.5 million items for the benefit of Delawareans. Delaware Libraries launched Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in 2020; now every Delawarean under age 5 is eligible statewide.

Norman received her Doctorate of Education in Innovation and Organizational Leadership from Wilmington University and is a recipient of the Audrey K. Doberstein Award for Leadership for her dissertation, Librarians' Leadership for Lifelong Learning. She is the first librarian to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women.

Halona Norton-Westbrook, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Halona Norton-Westbrook is the Director and CEO of the Honolulu Museum of Art. Founded in 1927, the Honolulu Museum of Art is the largest fine art museum in the state of Hawai'i, with an encyclopedic collection of over 55,000 works of art, an art school, a theater, and a fine arts library. Norton-Westbrook was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, lived for several years in London, England while working towards her graduate degrees, and took up her role in Honolulu in January 2020, having most recently served as Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Toledo Museum of Art. Prior to that, she was the recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Leadership Fellowship at the Toledo Museum of Art, a program inaugurated in 2012 to train the next generation of museum leaders.

Norton-Westbrook is a passionate advocate for museums and the vital role that they play in providing accessibility to the arts and fostering greater empathy, connection, and creativity in the lives of individuals and communities. Norton-Westbrook has an expertise in the formation, history, and evolution of museum collections in the 20th century and in Modern and Contemporary Art. She received a B.A. in American History and Studio Art from Mills College, an M.A. in Art History from Courtauld Institute of Art in London, and a Ph.D. in Museology from the University of Manchester.

Allison C. Perkins, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Allison Perkins joined the staff of Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as executive director in 2006. She was named Wake Forest University's associate provost for Reynolda House and Reynolda Gardens in 2015. Reynolda is evolving as a destination for visitors of all ages and backgrounds to experience belonging through peaceful contemplation, play, work, and learning. Reynolda's affiliation with Wake Forest University has grown in several stages, and the historic property and school share a grounding in the humanities for the common good. Perkins strives to uphold the institution's mission to connect people with the beauty and complexity of the American story through the integration of art, nature, and history.

Perkins spent the first half of her career in art museum education. Prior to joining Reynolda, she was deputy director of education and interpretation at the Baltimore Museum of Art, moving there from her previous role as education director of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth. Perkins received a Bachelor of Arts in art history from Lake Forest College and completed graduate work in art history at the University of Chicago. She is a graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute, an executive training program for senior-level museum professionals.

Monica Ramirez-Montagut, Member, National Museum and Library Services Board
Dr. Monica Ramirez-Montagut is the director for the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York. Previous positions include: Director of Michigan State University's Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, Director at the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana; Senior Curator for the San Jose Museum of Art in Silicon Valley, California; Curator at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut; and Assistant Curator at Solomon Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan. Throughout her extensive career, her approach to art is known for being both publicly engaged and socially conscious. An example is her 2019 groundbreaking exhibition Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women of America featuring the stories of 30 formerly incarcerated women of Louisiana. Ramirez-Montagut received an architecture degree from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, as well as a master's and Ph.D. in theory and history of architecture from Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. In 2020, Ramirez-Montagut joined the Board of Trustees of the U.S. International Council for Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors. She was one of the panelists of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs that selected artist Simone Leigh to represent the U.S. in the 59th Venice Biennale where Leigh received the Golden Lion award.