Lisa Funderburke Named Director, CEO of Newark Museum of Art
35Feb. 3, 2026
TheNewark Museum of Art(NMOA) has appointedLisa Funderburkechief executive and director of the New Jersey institution. The state’s largest fine arts museum, NMOA boasts a collection of 300,000 objects, with a focus on Tibetan art, and an annual operating budget that was just under $19 million in 2023. Funderburke joins the museum from the Rhode Island-based nonprofit Artist Community Alliance (ACA), an artist residency organization, where she has served as president and CEO since 2016. At NMOA, she succeeds Linda C. Harrison, who left last spring after six years in the role. Funderburke will take up her new post on February 2.
TheNew York Timesreports that during her tenure at the ACA, Funderburke grew the organization’s operating budget to $2.5 million and increased its staff to thirteen. She was previously associate director of the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, North Carolina, and earlier led the Charlotte Museum of Nature. Funderburke has served on the boards of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, and is currently a board member at the Performing Arts Alliance and the Center for Cultural Innovation in Los Angeles. She holds an undergraduate degree in botany and a master’s degree in biology, both from Howard University.
“Lisa brings to the museum unique breadth and depth of experience as a museum and arts leader,” said NMOA board chair Peter Englot in a statement, noting that he and the search committee were “of one mind that Lisa’s innovative approach and creative ideation are truly unmatched. She has infectious enthusiasm and energy, and we’re confident in her ability to strengthen the museum’s foundations, bringing equal parts visionary, strategic, and practical thinking to propel NMOA as New Jersey’s greatest art museum and a best-in-class museum nationally.”
“It’s a good time to apply my experience to a very specific place at a very specific moment, at a museum that I think is quite magical in how it shows up for the community,” Funderburke told the Times.