The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) has appointed Mary Deleary as the new director of its Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, effective October 19. Deleary, a member of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, is currently head of the university's Research Center for Contemporary Native Arts. Her appointment brings a leader with deep roots in the institution. She graduated from IAIA with a BFA in Museum Studies in 2010 and later earned a PhD in Native American Art History from the University of Oklahoma. Her expertise spans Anishinaabe leadership practices, Indigenous research methodologies, and archives and collection development — fields central to a museum devoted to contemporary Native art. The appointment has a symmetry to it: years ago, Deleary was a student intern at the very museum she will now lead. She has said that early experience illuminated for her the important role museums play in supporting Indigenous artists, students and communities, a conviction that will now shape the institution's direction. The move signals IAIA's intent to put Indigenous scholarship and leadership at the helm of its museum. At a moment when museums across the United States are being asked to rethink whose knowledge and authority they centre, the appointment places a scholar trained in Indigenous research practices in charge of one of the most significant collections of contemporary Native art. Deleary's background in archives and collection development points to where her tenure may focus: building the museum's holdings and the research infrastructure around them. For a university museum whose mission is inseparable from the artists and students it serves, that combination of curatorial and scholarly credentials is precisely the point.