Juliana Rowen Barton (she/her) is a historian, curator, and educator invested in institutional change toward social justice and equity. Through her research and curatorial projects, she explores the confluence of race, gender, and design.

Currently, she is the Director of the Center for the Arts and Curator of Gallery360 at Northeastern University. She is also part of the team behind Designing Motherhood, a Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and Graham Foundation supported book (MIT Press 2021), exhibition series, open-source curriculum, and storybanking initiative that explore and expand conversations around the intersection of design and the arc of human reproduction. Learn more about the project here and find it on Instagram @designingmotherhood.

Previously, she was an inaugural ACLS Leading Edge Fellow working with the Center for Craft to develop a portfolio of virtual community engagement initiatives intended to increase the value and relevance of craft to society. From 2017-2019, she worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), first as the Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Design and later as a part of the curatorial team for Designs for Different Futures (2019-2020). While at the PMA she also co-organized Design in Revolution (2018). Throughout her career, she has also worked on exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Barnes Foundation, Center for Architecture+Design, Philadelphia, the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians, and Center for Architecture/American Institute of Architects New York Chapter. In addition, she has developed academic and public programs for the Wolf Humanities Center and the Center for Craft, among others, and taught critical theory of race and architecture as a Lecturer at the Weitzman School of Design.

Born in New York City and raised in Charlottesville, Va, she received her BA in Art History and American Studies with highest distinction from the University of Virginia and her MA and PhD in the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania. She comes from a family of architects and spends her free time in the pottery studio and the kitchen.