Image: Dr. Mary Deleary (Chippewas of the Thames First Nation) '10, photograph by Tessema A. Meredith (Samoan)
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe has named Dr. Mary Deleary as the new director of its Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA). She takes up the post on 19 October 2026.
Deleary, an Anishinaabekwe from Deshkan Ziibiing (Chippewas of the Thames First Nation), is an IAIA graduate of the class of 2010. She earned a BFA in Museum Studies at the institute and later completed a PhD in Native American Art History at the University of Oklahoma.
She comes to the museum from IAIA's Research Center for Contemporary Native Arts (RCCNA), which she has directed. There, according to IAIA, she developed programmes that widened opportunities for study and research, including artist residencies and fellowships, and pursued collaborative ways of caring for and activating the institute's archives and collections. Her areas of expertise span museum practice, curating and exhibition development, archives and collections-based research, as well as Indigenous research methodologies and Anishinaabe approaches to governance and leadership.
Her doctoral research examines how Anishinaabe people make, remember and reconnect with ancestral belongings now held in museums and archives.
Deleary's connection with MoCNA goes back to her student years, when she interned at the museum; she has said that the experience strongly shaped how she understands museum work. She describes the museum as a place that educates about, celebrates and puts at its centre the lives, work and stories of Indigenous artists. IAIA President Dr. Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) pointed to Deleary's close knowledge of the institute, of contemporary Indigenous art, of museum and archival practice, and of the relationships linking artists, collections, students and communities.
As director, Deleary will oversee the museum and join the IAIA President's Cabinet, where she is expected to reinforce MoCNA's place within the wider institute and its ties to students, faculty, staff, artists, scholars and Indigenous communities.
Founded in 1972 and located in downtown Santa Fe since 1992, MoCNA is described by IAIA as the country's leading museum for exhibiting, collecting and interpreting contemporary Indigenous art. Its collection numbers more than 9,500 works in all media, dating from 1962 to the present.
