The Brooklyn Museum has appointed two deputy directors to its leadership team. Adjoa Jones de Almeida will be deputy director for learning and social impact and Carolyn Royston will be deputy director for engagement. Both of their positions are new ones at the museum.
In a statement, Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak said, “Adjoa and Carolyn are trailblazing arts leaders, and we are confident that they will make great contributions to advancing our commitments to audiences near and far and to deepening our social-change efforts.”
Jones de Almeida has worked in the museum’s education division since 2013 and was named its director in 2016. She previously founded two organizations, Sista II Sista in 1996 and Diáspora Solidária in the mid-2000s, while living in Bahia, Brazil. In her new role, she will continue to lead the education division as well as the museum’s public programs and community engagement teams. Additionally, she will “develop a sustained, multiyear strategy to engage audiences around issues that reflect urgent global themes—with serious implications for the Museum’s neighborhoods, the city, and communities everywhere—including mass criminalization and climate change,” according to a release.
In a statement, Jones de Almedia said, “I am excited to help reimagine the role of museums in people’s lives through innovative collaborations centering the needs and perspectives of POC and working-class communities, while continuing our commitment to widespread access, inclusion, and dialogue across difference.”
Royston is currently the chief experience officer at the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt in New York, where she oversaw visitor experience at the museum. She has previously held leadership positions at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and two U.K. museums, the Imperial War Museums and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In her new role at the Brooklyn Museum, Royston will focus on the museum’s audience engagement, with a specific focus on digital initiatives.
The Brooklyn Museum has been on a hiring spree over the past few months. In November, two curatorial announcements were made: Stephanie Sparling Williams as curator of American art and Kimberli Gant as curator of modern and contemporary art. In December, Kimberly Panicek (KP) Trueblood was named the museum’s president and chief operating officer.