Leadership

Veronica Roberts is the John and Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. She joined the Cantor in July of 2022 after serving for nearly a decade as curator of modern and contemporary art at the Blanton Museum of Art at UT Austin. Prior to working at the Blanton, she held curatorial positions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Indianapolis Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art.

Under her leadership, the Cantor has launched late night hours on Thursday evenings and extended hours on weekends to expand community access. She has helped raise the national profile of the museum by supporting ambitious exhibitions that travel nationally and has reaffirmed the Cantor’s scholarly mission by initiating a robust publication program. In the summer of 2024, she launched a pilot project, Archive Rooms, to highlight the rich resources in Stanford’s Special Collections. Since its inception, this series has celebrated influential Bay Area artists past and present including Bernice Bing, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Ester Hernandez, and Ruth Asawa. She has amplified the museum’s commitment to its Asian American Art Initiative (AAAI)—founded in 2018 by Cantor curator Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander and Stanford art historian Marci Kwon—partnering with Stanford Special Collections to bring Pacita Abad’s archive to the university and making the Cantor the sole West Coast venue for Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior, which premiered at the Venice Biennale. She has also reaffirmed the museum’s commitment to showcasing a broad, historical range of art via exhibitions such as Handle with Care (2025), Cunning Folk: Witchcraft, Magic, and Occult Knowledge (2025), Edmonia Lewis: Indelible Impressions, and a major exhibition of 19th century photosculpture opening in 2026.

Since her arrival, Roberts has enhanced the Cantor’s collection in meaningful ways. Working closely with the curatorial team, she has spearheaded significant acquisitions by notable local artists such as Amalia Mesa-Bains, Arleene Correa Valencia, Mildred Howard, Lava Thomas, and Margaret Kilgallen, as well as influential national and international artists such as Mel Chin, Jeremy Frey, Guadalupe Maravilla, and Pacita Abad.

A highly-regarded museum curator and scholar of contemporary art, during her tenure at the Blanton, she organized critically-acclaimed exhibitions such as Day Jobs (Blanton, 2023; Cantor, 2024); Contemporary Project: Njideka Akunyili Crosby (2022); Charles White: Celebrating the Gordon Family Gift to The University of Texas (2019), co-curated with Dr. Cherise Smith; Contemporary Project: Vincent Valdez: The City (2018); Nina Katchadourian: Curiouser (2017); and Converging Lines: Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt (2014). She also worked closely with Ellsworth Kelly to help realize Austin, a chapel with stained glass windows that is the only building the artist ever designed.

Roberts is a San Francisco native. She received her BA in art history from Williams College, her MA from UC Santa Barbara and served as a 2022 fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership in New York.

Marion Gill is the Deputy Director of the Cantor Arts Center where she is responsible for the museum’s day-to-day operations and administrative management. She works closely with the teams leading Finance, Human Resources, Facilities, Security, Collections, and Exhibitions Management.

Before coming to Stanford, she was the Associate Director of Special Projects at Princeton University and served as the Provost’s delegate on major projects. In this capacity, Marion provided planning and project management support to multi-year initiatives including the Art Museum’s expansion and rebuilding.

Prior to joining Princeton, Marion was the Director of Museum Planning and Operations at the International African American Museum (IAAM), in Charleston, South Carolina. In that position, she led the planning efforts for construction and up-fit coordination, facilities management, security and emergency operations, IT coordination, exhibition and media management, and retail operations (store and café).

Marion also spent more than 25 years at the Smithsonian Institution and played key roles in the planning and opening of two museums: the National Museum of the American Indian in 2004 and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016.

Gill is an alumna of the Northfield Mount Hermon School and holds a BA in Political Science from Fisk University.

Photo: Megan Roberts Pitts | Megapixels Media

Yael Eytan oversees marketing, communications, and strategic partnerships for both the Cantor Arts Center and the Anderson Collection. Building on a foundation of knowledge gained from early career positions in a global advertising agency, Yael launched her career in museum marketing and communications at the Art Institute of Chicago—where she worked on major initiatives including the opening of the Modern Wing and the museum’s first-ever branding project—and has been working in museums, universities, and at the intersections of the two ever since. Her passion for promoting art, culture, and lifelong learning has led her to marketing and communications leadership positions at the University of Chicago, the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum), and the Asian Art Museum.

Yael has been a guest speaker at several universities, including Stanford’s very own Graduate School of Business, and has presented at the American Alliance of Museums and National Arts Marketing conferences, among others. She has served as a volunteer for several cultural organizations, including as a Board Member of the Young Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and committee member for the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago’s artsmart program, as well as a tour guide for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House.

Yael holds a bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature from Brown University and has completed graduate and executive level coursework at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Wharton School of Management.

Christina Linden has a professional practice that spans the fields of museum work, public engagement, and higher education. Throughout, she strives to support social relevancy and create platforms and access for underrepresented voices and audiences. She has most recently held joint positions as Head of Academic Engagement at the California College of the Arts Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts and Chair of the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at CCA. Prior to holding her current faculty position at CCA, she also worked with graduate and undergraduate students as Visiting Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University, and as a classroom instructor at San Francisco Art Institute, California State University East Bay, and Bard College. She served as Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the visitor-centered Oakland Museum of California from 2013–2017, where she curated projects with artists and community organizations including Math Bass, the Imperial Court of San Francisco, Roy De Forest, Jedediah Caesar, the San Francisco Suiseki Kai, Michelle Dizon, Judy Chicago, and Marion Gray. Linden continued working with OMCA through 2019 to curate Queer California: Untold Stories, a large-scale exhibition project focusing on LGBTQ+ history and art in California. In 2012 and 2013, she worked with the Education + Public Practice Department at SFMOMA on projects with artists Desirée Holman and Ben Kinmont. Her writing has been published in Art in America, Art Practical, Fillip, Modern Painters, SFAQ, Women and Performance: a journal of feminist theory, and numerous artists' books and exhibition catalogs. She is currently working on the book Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects in collaboration with artist Chris E. Vargas and curator David Evans Frantz. Linden holds an MA in Curatorial Studies from Bard College and a BA in Art History from New York University.

Magdelana (Maggie) Reyes was named Director of Development in 2023. At the Cantor, she is responsible for advancing the organization's mission by implementing a strategic fundraising strategy, including the membership and special events programs.

She most recently worked at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she successfully designed and executed communications strategies, as well as oversaw several major digital transformation projects. Prior to Stanford, Magdelana held roles at the Jersey City Museum, Lucas Schoormans Gallery, and Stay Gold Gallery.

Magdelana holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, an MA in Art Business from Sotheby's Institute of Art, and a BA in Art History and Urban Studies from Stanford University.