[2] Sirén attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he majored in art history and took courses on philosophy and Italian language and culture.

[1] There he wrote two qualifying papers—one in his major field titled “Intersecting Paths in the History of Modern European Painting: An Investigation of Edvard Munch’s Influence on Henri Matisse, 1895–1908,” and a second in his minor field titled “Melodies in Blue and White: Luca della Robbia at Santa Maria Impruneta and the Cultural Stance of Terracotta Invetriata in Quattrocento Florence.” In 2001, Sirén received his PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts.

[3] Sirén began his professional career in the Department of Art History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he was an assistant professor from 2000 to 2004.

He was preceded at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum by Louis Grachos, who was appointed the Ernest and Sarah Butler Executive Director and CEO of The Contemporary Austin in 2013.

[7] He has curated or co-curated several major exhibitions, including Anselm Kiefer: Beyond Landscape (2013), Monet and the Impressionist Revolution, 1860–1910 (2015), and Picasso: The Artist and His Models (2016).

[10] Sirén lives in Buffalo, New York, with his wife Sonja, whom he met in Israel while she was pursuing her doctoral studies on security policy and human rights in Nordic countries.