Karen Kramer, The Stuart W. and Elizabeth F. Pratt Curator of Native American and Oceanic Art and Culture

Karen Kramer's longstanding commitment to innovative approaches to Indigenous art and culture and her experiences working with Native artists, scholars, communities and stakeholders help shape the museum's ambitious program in Native American and Oceanic Art and Culture, including the growth of its collection, its sensitive presentation and its ongoing interpretation and preservation. Kramer directs PEM's innovative Native American Fellowship program, which provides training for rising Native American leaders in the museum, cultural and academic sectors.

Over the past 20 years, Kramer has helped produce more than 10 major exhibitions on Native American art and culture, including On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America; Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger; T.C. Cannon: At the Edge of America; Native Fashion Now; and Shapeshifting: Transformations in Native American Art.

Kramer earned her M.A. in Anthropology from George Washington University and her B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Denver. She is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at Harvard University, pursuing a dissertation that will focus on Indigenous public art, arts-based critiques of settler colonialism and cultural memory in the American public sector. She has served as the president, the vice-president and a board member of the Native American Art Studies Association.