Masum Momaya

Currently a Global Cities Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and recently a Curator at the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. Masum Momaya has 20 years of experience working at the intersection of arts & culture, social justice and international affairs as a curator, writer and educator. She has worked globally and locally for women’s rights and racial justice, enlisting culture for social change.

Her curatorial portfolio includes a signature Smithsonian exhibition; two online multimedia, multilingual exhibitions; a community-based exhibition at a local museum; a solo artist exhibition; and a commissioned multiple artist, themed exhibition. Her most recent exhibition Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation showed the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History from 2014-2015 and is currently traveling around the United States and India, in partnership with the U.S. Department of State.

Formerly, Dr. Momaya did curatorial work at the International Museum of Women in San Francisco and the Indo-American Heritage Museum in Chicago. She also served as lead researcher and writer of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development and on the boards of the Third Wave Foundation, Amnesty International’s Women’s Human Rights Program and the Women’s Intercultural Network.

Her more than 100 articles, podcasts and exhibitions have been translated into more a dozen languages including a review of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s Half the Sky for the Women’s Policy Journal of Harvard. Dr. Momaya is an avid public speaker having given talks at the White House, several international conferences and numerous universities and community meetings. She has taught courses at Harvard University, Stanford University, Simmons College and the University of Maryland.

Her work has been featured by NPR, the Associated Press, BBC News, Agence-France Presse, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Times of India, The Hindu, Vogue India and feministing.com.

Dr. Momaya earned an AB, with honors and distinction, in Public Policy and Feminist Studies from Stanford University and a masters degree in Education (EdM) and a doctorate (EdD) in Human Development from Harvard University. She is a graduate of the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs in San Francisco and has conducted research at the Centre for Development Studies at Oxford Universit