Kathleen Jameson

Kathleen V. Jameson, Ph.D., is a museum leader, scholar and arts advocate with more than three decades of experience in museum leadership, curatorial work, fundraising, and community engagement.

She has held senior leadership roles at several major American art museums, including Executive Director of the James A. Michener Art Museum, the internationally regarded home to Pennsylvania Impressionism and American art; President & CEO of The Mint Museum in Charlotte; and Assistant Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her work has included collections development, exhibitions, strategic planning, fundraising, governance, organizational restructuring, and long-range institutional planning.

A scholar of American art and the history of photography, Jameson specializes in late-19th- and early-20th-century American art, with additional expertise in works on paper. She studied American Art and Architecture at the University of Louisville and continued that focus in her doctoral studies at the University of Delaware.

Her appointment to the Speed Art Museum marks a return to Louisville and to an institution connected to her early career. While earning her master’s degree at the University of Louisville, Jameson worked with then-Speed Art Museum Director Peter Morrin, an experience she has described as formative to her career.

Jameson holds a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware, an M.B.A. from Rice University, an M.A. from the University of Louisville, and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.