[5] She began her studies in costume design before moving to fine art and earning a Bachelor's degree at Amherst College, graduating in 1984.

[1][10] She was set to assume the role of Dean of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston in June 2022.

[18] In 2015 she gave the opening lecture for The Visual Blues, an exhibition with work from the Harlem Renaissance at the Jepson Center for the Arts.

The exhibition, titled i found god in myself: the 40 anniversary of Ntozake Shange's for colored girls... and curated by Peter "Souleo" Wright, traveled to African American Museum in Philadelphia in 2016 and City Without Walls (cWOW) gallery in 2017 in Newark, New Jersey.

The exhibition also featured artists Renée Cox, Carrie Mae Weems, Deborah Willis, Saya Woolfalk, Michael Paul Britto, Pamela Council and Dianne Smith among others.