Jessica Levin Martinez, currently serving as the director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, has been officially announced as the next president and executive director of the Corning Museum of Glass. Martinez will take over from Corning's Karol Wight, who announced her retirement in April 2025. Martinez's start date at Corning, February 2, 2026, gives her several weeks of overlap with Wight to help her get up to speed.
“Dr. Martinez is passionate about museums and what it takes for a museum to connect with audiences," Corning board chair Jeff Evenson said in a prepared statement. "She possesses a spirit of bold experimentation that approaches the museum broadly as an innovation laboratory, not as a temple."
The hire comes after a more-than-six-month's search. Among the decisive factors in choosing Martinez, the museum cited her record of acquisitions, ability to organize the Cornell museum's 50th anniversary celebrations, reorganization of the curatorial staff, and track record as an effective fundraiser. The announcement noted that Martinez had raised over $32 million in her six-year tenure leading Cornell's Johnson Museum of Art.
“It is an honor to become the next director of the Corning Museum of Glass, an institution I have long admired,” Martinez said in a prepared statement. “The institution’s mission to transform the way the world understands the art, history, and science of glass on a global scale resonates deeply with my own experiences. I look forward to joining this remarkable team of dedicated professionals who, like the glass artists who push the boundaries of the medium, advance museum practice with real ingenuity.”
When she was celebrated as a "Harvard Hero" in 2017, Martinez was featured in a Harvard Art Museum profile, in which she was honored for her efforts to make the extensive collections of the university's museums more accessible to students and the general public.
“It’s important to invite people into the workings of a museum and the research projects going on behind the scenes,” Martinez said in the article.
Martinez, who earned a PhD in art and architectural history from Harvard in 2004, worked at the Harvard Art Museums as Director of Academic and Public Programs. She has also served in an educational and administrative capacity at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, and later spent time investigating the provenance of artwork in Prague and Slovakia.