Josie Roland Hodson

Josie Roland Hodson is the art collection manager at Mellon, where she is responsible for operations, policy development, and programming for the Foundation’s art collection.

Josie is an art historian and writer whose work has been published in October, Art in America, Grove Dictionary of Art, Texte zur Kunst, and in the 2024 Whitney Biennial catalog.

She recently served as the research associate in the Office of the President of the Mellon Foundation. Prior to Mellon, Josie worked at the Ford Foundation in the Creativity and Free Expression program area, assisting with the Art for Justice program. She has interned at several museums, including the Studio Museum in Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, SFMOMA, and Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town.

Josie is a PhD candidate in African American Studies and History of Art at Yale University, where she is working on a dissertation that considers evolutions in experimental Black aesthetics in New York City following the political, social, and economic transformations catalyzed by the fiscal crisis of 1975. She has a BA in Art History and African & African American Studies from Stanford University, and is a proud Mellon Mays Fellow.