Get involved About Leadership and Departments

Leadership and Departments

We are a brave, innovative, and inclusive space, just like the city we call home. Meet the teams who, along with our community, help Phoenix Art Museum lead the way.

Leadership and Departments

BECOME A PHXART MEMBER TO ENJOY UNLIMITED ADMISSION TO THE MUSEUM YOU LOVE, ALL YEAR LONG

MEET THE DIRECTOR

Jeremy Mikolajczak, Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum

Jeremy Mikolajczak

The Sybil Harrington Director and Chief Executive Officer

Jeremy Mikolajczak is the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. Since joining the Museum in April 2022, Mikolajczak has amplified the Museum’s role and impact as a vital cultural resource and the largest visual arts institution in the Southwest. In addition to showcasing the work of globally relevant artists, Mikolajczak has prioritized investing in regional artists and audiences, forging new partnerships and connections through exhibitions, educational, and public programming in response to and anticipation of the needs and interests of the Greater Phoenix community. 

Mikolajczak’s strategic vision includes the development of programming, exhibitions, and acquisition strategies that reflect and engage the Museum’s visitors in step with Phoenix’s continued growth and evolution while raising its national profile. In 2023, Mikolajczak oversaw creation of a new executive leadership team with whom he works closely to set and implement the Museum’s institutional vision and ensure its long-term strategic and fiscal success. Along with fostering an intentional community-centric approach to engaging audiences, he has extended curatorial and grantmaking initiatives that support and elevate Arizona-based artists, invested resources to support the city’s over 40% Latinx population, including the establishment of the first full-time Spanish-language translator and ASU-LACMA fellowship, initiated the first curatorial position dedicated to community engagement, and established excellence funds to support curatorial and educational initiatives directly.

Prior to joining Phoenix Art Museum, Mikolajczak served as the Jon and Linda Ender Director and CEO of the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block (TMA). During his tenure at TMA, Mikolajczak led the organization through a period of exceptional growth. He oversaw a capital campaign raising more than $7 million that established and renovated the Alice Chaiten Baker Center for Art Education and the Kasser Family Wing of Latin American Art, while further powering other such strategic expansions to the TMA campus that further enabled the institution to better engage its multicultural community. 

Before his time with TMA, Mikolajczak served as the executive director and chief curator at the Miami Dade College’s Museum and Galleries of Art + Design, where he oversaw a network of six campus galleries and an international sculpture garden; founded the Museum of Art and Design in 2012; established the Cuban Exile Experience located in downtown Miami’s Freedom Tower; and helped to grow the institution’s annual impact to more than 100,000 visitors. Mikolajczak has also served as a scholar and educator at the University of Florida (Gainesville) and the University of Central Missouri. 

Mikolajczak studied studio art and art history, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from West Virginia University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he was a University Fellow.He lives in the Valley of the Sun with his wife, Ana Tello, and their two children.

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MEET THE LEADERSHIP TEAM

We are the Phoenix Art Museum senior leadership team.

Nikki Deleon Martin

Nikki DeLeon Martin

Deputy Director and Chief Advancement Officer

Nikki DeLeon Martin is deputy director and chief advancement officer of Phoenix Art Museum, where she serves as a member of the Museum’s executive leadership team and helps set and implement the institutional vision. Appointed to the role of chief advancement officer in June 2023, DeLeon Martin oversees fundraising, Membership, visitor services, human resources, and external affairs.  

DeLeon Martin first joined the Museum in January 2012 to lead its public relations and communications efforts. In 2013, she transitioned to a consultant role, becoming the editor and chief writer for PhxArt Magazine. She returned to the Museum in 2015 as director of marketing and communications before advancing in 2017 to the role of Chief Marketing and External Affairs Officer, with a portfolio of responsibility including marketing, communications, public relations, Circles of Support, Membership, and affiliate groups. She became the Museum’s interim deputy director in July 2021 and was appointed to deputy director in April 2022, overseeing communications, marketing, public relations, Membership, education and engagement, security, visitor services, human resources, and retail services.  

Prior to her time with the Museum, DeLeon Martin served as a communications consultant with a specialized focus on institutions of higher education, crisis communications, change management, and executive communications strategy. She has held a number of leadership positions within the fields of marketing and communications at organizations such as Paradise Valley and Estrella Mountain colleges. She had a consultant role with Maricopa Community Colleges in the office of the Chief Strategy Officer, centering her efforts on Maricopa Priorities initiatives, a program that positioned innovation and growth for one of the nation’s largest community college systems. 

DeLeon Martin earned an MFA in creative writing from Bennington College and a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Arizona State University. She serves on a number of volunteer boards and committees. As a writer and storyteller, she is particularly focused on creating meaningful connections between diverse audiences. 

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Olga Viso headshot

Olga Viso

Selig Family Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs

Olga Viso is the Selig Family Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt), where she leads the Museum’s curatorial division. She oversees the curatorial staff across all collecting areas, the collections and exhibitions management teams, and the departments of education and engagement. As a specialist in modern and contemporary art, she serves as the lead curator responsible for exhibitions and acquisitions in this area. A seasoned arts leader, curator, and scholar with a focus on Latin American/Latinx contemporary art, Viso has over 30 years of experience working both as a curator and a museum administrator. As PhxArt’s Selig Family Chief Curator, Viso works closely with Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO, the Board of Trustees, and members of PhxArt’s executive leadership team to set and implement the Museum’s institutional vision. 

In 2022, Viso joined the Museum as a part-time curator-at-large and a senior curatorial advisor, developing original exhibitions, overseeing new artist commissions, and advising on overall acquisitions and curatorial strategies. Her most recent exhibition, Juan Francisco Elso: Por América, opened at El Museo del Barrio in New York City before traveling to Phoenix, where it is presented in dialogue with highlights from the ASU Art Museum’s signature collection of contemporary Cuban art.  

Viso assumed the role of Selig Family Chief Curator in June 2023, expanding her curatorial work engaging with and presenting the leading artists of today, including highlighting the creative contributions of Arizona-based practitioners. She collaborates with PhxArt leadership to develop various initiatives designed to amplify the institution’s role as a cultural anchor and convener for the Greater Phoenix community and the Southwest. 

In addition to her work at PhxArt, Viso acts as senior advisor at ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, where she develops academic partnerships for the university with art museums (including PhxArt). She also supports the ASU-LACMA master’s fellowship program in art history, a collaboration between the university and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that invests in the advancement of museum professionals of color already working in museums.  

Before joining the Museum, Viso served as executive director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis from 2007–2017, during which time she oversaw the integration of the Walker’s main campus with the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and expanded the multidisciplinary art center’s renowned program and collections. Prior to that, she spent 13 years as director and curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. She has organized and curated numerous landmark solo and group exhibitions, with major monographic artist surveys including Everything, a 30-year retrospective of work by Guillermo Kutica (2010); Ana Mendieta: Earth Body, Sculpture and Performance 1972–1985 (2004); and Jim Hodges: Give Me More Than You Take (2013). Viso has also held positions at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. In 2013, Viso was appointed by President Obama to the National Council on the Arts. Viso is an emeritus member of the Association of Art Museum Directors and was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Fellow in Residence 2019–2020. She served on the Board of the Andy Warhol Foundation from 2008-2016. Viso received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rollins College and her Master of Fine Arts in art history from Emory University.

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Allan Alvarado

Allan Alvarado

Chief Financial and Operating Officer

Allan Alvarado is the chief financial and operating officer of Phoenix Art Museum, appointed in 2022 to oversee all museum operations including the finance, IT, facilities and maintenance, and event rentals departments.  

Alvarado has over 30 years’ experience as a senior financial and operational executive, with more than 20 years’ experience working in the education and nonprofits sectors. Prior to joining the Museum, Alvarado served as Chief Financial Officer of Operation Gratitude Inc., a nonprofit organization that honors the service of Military and First Responders by creating opportunities to express gratitude. In that role, he was responsible for planning, implementing, managing, and controlling all finance-related activities. He also worked in partnership with the Executive Team and Board of Directors to provide strategic financial leadership and support and improve the organization’s long-term health. 

Previously, Alvarado held the positions of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at StrongMind Inc., an education technology company that offers digital solutions and curriculum for students and teachers. During his tenure there, he coordinated the annual budgeting and financial review and reporting processes. He also managed the finance, accounting, operational technology, legal, partner enrollment, and facilities departments. Alvarado additionally served as CFO at UMOM New Day Centers, a Phoenix-based nonprofit that provides shelter and supportive services for people experiencing homelessness, where he oversaw the agency’s overall strategic and financial responsibilities. Prior to that, for 15 years, he led financial operations for private, parochial, and public school systems throughout the western United States, securing funding for expansion projects, developing and managing financial aid programs, and examining and refining budgeting, among other duties.    

Alvarado earned a Bachelor of Science in finance from Arizona State University and an MBA from University of Phoenix. 

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MEET THE CURATORS

As curators, we seek to bring the world to Phoenix, and Phoenix to the world.

BETSY FAHLMAN
Betsy Fahlman, PhD

Adjunct Curator of American Art

Exhibition Highlights

  • William Herbert “Buck” Dunton: A Mainer Goes West
  • Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West
  • Philip C. Curtis and the Landscapes of Arizona
  • Transcendent Transcendentalists
  • The Figure in Context: An Academic Tradition
Helen Jean

Jacquie Dorrance Curator of Fashion Design

Exhibition Highlights

  • MOVE: The Modern Cut of Geoffrey Beene
  • Generation Paper: Fast Fashion of the 1960s
  • Fashion’s Subversives
  • Fearless Fashion: Rudi Gernreich
  • India: Fashion’s Muse
Emilia Mickevicius, PhD
Emilia Mickevicius, PhD

Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography

Exhibition Highlights

  • Inside Out: Selections from the Sack Photographic Trust (SFMOMA)
  • Sightlines: Photographs from the Collection (SFMOMA)
  • A Living for Us All: Artists and the WPA (SFMOMA)
  • Kinship: Photography and Connection (SFMOMA)
  • Sea Change: Photographs from the Collection (SFMOMA)
Christian Ramírez
Christian Ramírez

Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary and Community Art Initiatives

Exhibition Highlights

  • Guarding the Art
  • 2023 Arizona Artist Awards
  • Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory
Rachel Sadvary Zebro
Rachel Sadvary Zebro

Associate Curator of Collections

Exhibition Highlights

  • Breaking Up
  • Out of Print: Innovations of 19th-and 20th-Century Printmaking from the Collection of Phoenix Art Museum and The Schorr Collection
  • Joseph Cornell: Things Unseen
  • Rauschenberg and Johns: The Blurring of Art and Life
  • In the Company of Women: Women Artists from the Collection

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Meet the Departments

CURATORIAL DIVISION

Division Chair: Olga Viso, Selig Family Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs

  • American Art Department 
  • Asian Art Department 
  • Fashion Design Department 
  • Latin American Art Department 
  • Modern and Contemporary Art Department 
  • Photography | The Center for Creative Photography 
  • Registration and Preparation Department  
  • Education and Engagement Department 
  • Lemon Art Research Library
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS AND ADVANCEMENT DIVISION

Division Chair: Nikki DeLeon Martin, Deputy Director and Chief Advancement Officer

  • Membership and Guest Services Department 
  • Institutional Giving Department 
  • Development Information Services Department 
  • Major Gifts Department 
  • Circles of Support Department 
  • Marketing and Creative Services Department 
  • Communications and Public Relations Department 
  • Arizona Costume Institute and the Men’s Arts Council 
  • Human Resources Department
FINANCE AND OPERATIONS DIVISION

Division Chair: Allan Alvarado, Chief Financial Officer

  • Accounting and Finance Department 
  • Security Department 
  • Retail Department 
  • Facilities and Operations Department 
  • Information Systems Department 
  • Event Rentals Department
Membership

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Careers

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Press Room

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