As of June 26, the museum has a new director, David Odo, who was previously director of academic and public programs, division head, and research curator at the Harvard Art Museums. At Harvard, he oversaw academic and public engagement programs and established initiatives that connected departments and schools across the university with the museums. For example, the Ho Family Student Guide Program trains undergraduates from STEM and humanities backgrounds to lead original tours of the museum. He also created a program for nuclear medicine that brought doctors from Harvard Medical School and its teaching hospitals into the museum for a yearlong series of art-centered discussions.
Odo is just the eighth director in the history of the museum, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary all year. He says that his parents dragged him around museums from the time he was a young child. He eventually developed into an avid museum visitor, especially after taking a required course in art humanities in his first year of college. During graduate school at the University of Oxford, he conducted research at the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Ashmolean Museum, as well as at other museums and archives, focusing on 19th-century photographs of Japan.
He taught and guest curated at Harvard and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology for several years before heading to the Yale University Art Gallery, where he focused on interdisciplinary teaching. After returning to Harvard, he says he developed an intense enthusiasm for connecting museums and university students with public audiences, which he hopes to continue at UGA.