Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and the William and Mildred Lasden Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design. In this role she provides the strategic direction and creative oversight for exhibitions, acquisitions, publications, and exhibition-related programming. She is the author of the groundbreaking study String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art. In addition, she has published widely on a diverse set of topics, including the history of modernism and its relationship to craft and the decorative, the material culture of the American counterculture, and feminist art. Her work on feminist art and culture also includes the co-direction of the public program Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver from 2007 to 2017. In her role as a curator, recent exhibitions include, Surface/Depth: The Decorative After Miriam Schapiro (2018); Vera Paints A Scarf!: The Art and Design of Vera Neumann (2019) and Queer Maximalism x Machine Dazzle. Prior to her appointment at MAD she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Colorado. At BGC her teaching focuses on the intersections of craft, design, and contemporary art.