Sharon Aponte
Private Collections Management & Legacy Planning
She began at the Penn Museum, coordinating Native American repatriation and later directing a project that made roughly half a million primary archaeological documents publicly accessible. She has since managed a private collection in Phoenix, helped build the Musical Instrument Museum’s collection from zero to more than 10,000 instruments in twenty-four months, and joined the founding team of the National Museum of Qatar. At the Wolfsonian–FIU she served as Deputy Director for Collections and Curatorial Affairs, responsible for 200,000 objects across three facilities.
What runs through all of it is stewardship: understanding a collection clearly, keeping it safe, and making sure it passes intact — physically and administratively — into whatever comes next.
She completed doctoral coursework, examinations, and dissertation field research in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, following a B.A. in Anthropology from Montclair State University. Her fieldwork spanned a decade across the U.S., Guatemala and Belize.
Her exhibitions and curatorial work includes roughly fifty shows as curator, co-curator, or overseeing director — from studio furniture and modern design to permanent collection galleries covering natural history through contemporary art. She has contributed to exhibition catalogues and published on a variety of archaeological topics.
One parent from the Old Caledonia — Scotland — and one from New Caledonia. Reconstructing that family history has taken decades, and the substantial photo and document archive she inherited has had the same standards applied to it as any museum collection: organized, preserved, and made accessible to her extended family now and for whoever comes after.
- American Alliance of Museums (2004–present) — Leadership, Curatorial, and Registrar’s Committees
- Collections Advisory Council, National Academy of Design (2022–present)
- Co-Founder and Chair, Alliance for Response Miami (2012–2017) — a disaster planning coalition of collecting institutions, conservation organizations, and government emergency response agencies
- Co-Organizer, MUSCON (2012–2017) — with Vitra Design Museum and Design Miami/
- Association of Art Museum Directors (2014–2015)
- Society for American Archaeology (1993–2008) — Ethics, Public Education, and Student Affairs Committees
