Meet the Judges

Caroline Baumann became the Director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in 2013, after serving the museum in various leadership positions for twelve years. Among Baumann’s major initiatives are the recent restoration and expansion of the museum’s home in the landmark Carnegie Mansion; and the rapid digitization of over 180,000 objects in the museum’s permanent collection, transforming America’s design museum into a dynamic, global resource for the public understanding of historic and contemporary design. Baumann earned a master’s degree in medieval art from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts.  She also received a bachelor’s degree in the history of art and French literature from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

Melissa Chiu is the Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, our national museum of modern art, in Washington, D.C.. Chiu has served as a board member for the Association of Museum Directors, the American Alliance of Museums, the Museum Association of New York, as well as several museum advisory boards in China. Prior to joining the Hirshhorn, Chiu was Director at the Asia Society Museum and curator for Contemporary Asian and Asian American Art. Chiu earned her Ph.D. from the University of Western Sydney in the study of Contemporary Chinese Art in the Diaspora.

JiaJia Fei is the Director of Digital at the Jewish Museum of New York where she oversees the Museum’s digital strategy across platforms, including web, blog, mobile, email, and social media. Fei previously served as Associate Director, Digital Marketing at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and holds a B.A. degree in History of Art from Bryn Mawr College.

Agnes Gund is president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, chair of MoMA’s International Council, and chair of MoMA PS1. She is a co-founder of the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York City and founder and chair of Studio in a School, a non-profit organization she established in 1977 in response to budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts classes from New York City public schools. An influential philanthropist, collector, and arts education advocate, she also serves on the boards of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, and the Foundation for Contemporary Art, among others. She holds a B.A in History from Connecticut College and an M.A. in Art History from Harvard’s Fogg Museum. In 1997, she received the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton.

William Kloss studied at Oberlin College where he received degrees in English and Art History. Postgraduate study at the University of Michigan led to a Fulbright scholarship in Rome. He taught art history at the University of Virginia before beginning a long relationship with the Smithsonian Institution, for which he has taught more than 150 courses in the U.S. and abroad on topics ranging from ancient Greek art to Impressionism. In 1990 Bill Kloss was appointed to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House by President George H.W. Bush. He served on the Committee for nearly 20 years. In recent years he has created five art history programs for The Great Courses. For the White House Historical Association he authored the flagship publication Art in the White House: A Nation's Pride, for which he received several national awards and he is currently working on the inaugural editions of the Presidents and First Ladies of the United States of America.

Jan Krawitz is a documentary filmmaker and a Professor at Stanford University where she directed the Graduate Program in Documentary Film for 15 years. Her work has been exhibited at Sundance, the New York Film Festival, South by Southwest, and at international film festivals in London, Sydney, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Edinburgh.  Her 2014 film, Perfect Strangers, about an altruistic kidney donor, was broadcast nationally on the PBS World channel in 2015. Her Emmy-nominated 2004 film, Big Enough, was broadcast on the 
PBS series P.O.V. and in 18 countries. She holds a B.A. degree from Cornell University and an M.F.A. degree in Film from Temple University.

Earl A. Powell III has served as the Director of the National Gallery of Art since his appointment in 1992. He is also chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts as well as a trustee of the American Federation of the Arts, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the White House Historical Association. An expert in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, he received his BA with honors from Williams College and his masters and doctorate degrees from the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard.