Announcing the 2026 CCL Fellowship Class

Now in its nineteenth year, the CCL Fellowship is the leading program for training curators worldwide, providing them with the skills and tools needed to become visionary leaders of art museums and cultural institutions today.

The 2026 cohort was selected through a highly competitive process by a group of leading museum professionals. Each curator brings a distinguished record of academic and curatorial excellence and a shared commitment to creating a more dynamic and responsive museum field. Reflecting the expansiveness of curatorial practice today, the cohort represents a range of institutional contexts – including six museums new to CCL – and expertise in artistic creativity across the globe.

The 2026 Fellows, listed alphabetically, are:

Mitra Abbaspour, Houghton Curator & Head of Modern and Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums
Kyung An, Curator of Asian Art Initiative & Head of Global Exhibitions Initiative, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Taína Caragol, Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, National Portrait Gallery
Cathleen Chaffee, Charles Balbach Chief Curator, Buffalo AKG Art Museum
Saisha Grayson, Curator of Time-Based Media, Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM)
Stamatina Gregory, Head Curator & Director of Exhibitions and Collections, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art
Imani Haynes, Curator, The Reginald F. Lewis Museum
Jessica Hong, Chief Curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Joshua Lubin-Levy, Director, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University
Ruth McDougall, Curator, Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
John Kenneth Paranada, Curator of Art and Climate Change, Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia
Valéria Piccoli, Curator of Latin American Art & Ken and Linda Cutler Chair of the Arts of the Americas, Minneapolis Institute of Art

CCL’s Fellowship program prepares curators to positively influence and shape the future of museums. Evolving in-step with the changing museum landscape, the curriculum emphasizes innovative, cross-disciplinary, and values-driven approaches to leadership and centers the social and civic responsibilities of museums.  The program offers a dynamic environment for learning, collaboration, and exchange, where Fellows share ideas, solve problems, and support one another as they work to make change in their institutions and in their communities.

We celebrate the accomplishments of these exceptional curators and are excited by their potential as the next generation of institutional leaders. CCL is proud to welcome the nineteenth cohort to our growing network of over four hundred and sixty-five alumni whose impact continues to transform the museum field and beyond.

Congratulations to the CCL Class of 2026!