Principals & Partners

View of the Grand Hall from the north/south artwalk. Rendering by Adjaye Associates, 2020.

James Steward, the Museum’s Nancy A. Nasher–David J. Haemisegger, Class of 1976, Director

James Steward joined the Princeton University Art Museum as its director in April 2009. He is an experienced museum professional with almost thirty years of service to the field, including eleven years as director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, where he oversaw the planning, design, and construction of a major new building that was named one of the world’s ten best new buildings for 2010 by the American Institute of Architects. 

Steward holds a doctorate in the History of Art from Trinity College, Oxford University, where he wrote his dissertation with the esteemed art historian Francis Haskell. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and began his graduate career at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. 

At Princeton, Steward directs a staff of 185 with an operating budget of approximately $32 million and globe-spanning collections of more than 117,000 works of art from over 5,000 years of human history. He also holds the position of Lecturer with the Rank of Professor in Princeton’s Department of Art & Archaeology, where he teaches regularly, and is a faculty fellow of Rockefeller College. 

Steward is an active scholar who has authored a number of significant volumes and curated major touring exhibitions ranging from the art of eighteenth-century Italy to the work of Edvard Munch to contemporary African American art. His first book, The New Child: British Art and the Origins of Modern Childhood, was named a book of the year by both The Times of London and The Washington Post. He is currently writing a volume on the place of the modern-day museum in American civic life. He is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and many more; he has been a Fellow at the Huntington Library and was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal for distinguished service from the University of California at Berkeley and the Presidential Medal of Honor from the Russian Federation for services to arts and culture. 

Adjaye Associates, design architects

Adjaye Associates’s early work largely involved private commissions for the design of artist studios and residences; it quickly evolved into civic commissions, beginning with the Ideas Stores, two public libraries in London. The firm’s best-known project to date, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, opened on the National Mall in 2016 and was named Cultural Event of the Year by The New York Times. Today the firm’s portfolio continues to evolve with major cultural, civic, and commercial projects. 

Ron McCoy, FAIA, University Architect

Ron McCoy was appointed University Architect at Princeton University in August 2008. He provides overall guidance for the planning, architecture, and landscape of Princeton’s campus. He was part of the facilities team that delivered dozens of major new projects as envisioned in the 2016 Campus Plan. He recently led the effort to create the 2026 Campus Plan, which provides a framework for University growth over the next ten years in the context of potential needs and developments over a thirty-year period. 

Prior to joining Princeton, McCoy served as University Architect at Arizona State University, overseeing approximately six million square feet of new construction, including the creation of a new campus in downtown Phoenix. At ASU, he was also a professor and director of the School of Architecture.  

McCoy was elected to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) College of Fellows in 2007 and received the AIA Arizona Architects Medal in 2006. He received a BS in architecture from the University of Southern California and a master’s degree in architecture from Princeton University. When his schedule allows, he teaches a Freshman Seminar titled “Architecture and the American College Campus.” 

Cooper Robertson, executive architects

Cooper Robertson is a leading architecture firm with a diverse body of work. The firm is recognized nationally for design excellence, with over 150 major awards for projects that integrate architecture and urban design at many scales, from buildings to public spaces to cities. Cooper Robertson is acknowledged as among the foremost museum planning and design firms in the country. The cultural practice is headed by Bruce Davis, AIA, and Erin Flynn, RA, who have led an international field of over fifty-five museums through their reinvention and expansion, resulting in spaces that support the highest standards for the display and preservation of the world’s most distinguished collections, and constitute some of the world’s best museum architecture. The firm’s portfolio includes projects for the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale Center for British Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the J. Paul Getty Trust, and the Gateway Arch Museum.

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