E. Carmen Ramos has been chief curatorial and conservation officer at the National Gallery of Art since 2021. In this executive role, she is responsible for the strategic expansion of the collection and curatorial staff, and the installation, care, and research of the museum’s collection. Working collaboratively across the museum, she leads the development of curatorial and conservation scholarship.

Ramos is one of the world’s foremost experts on Latinx art. She previously served as the acting chief curator and curator of Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), where she built one of the largest collections of Latinx art at a museum of American art. At SAAM, she organized exhibitions and publications that expanded our understanding the art of the United States, including Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art (2013), which traveled to eight cities and received a 2014 Excellence Award from the Association of Art Museum Curators, and ¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now (2020). Prior to SAAM, she was an assistant curator at the Newark Museum of Art in New Jersey.

Ramos holds a PhD and MA in art history from the University of Chicago and a BA in art history and psychology from New York University.