Steven Nelson is the dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (the Center), responsible for its fellowships, meetings, research, and publications. Nelson has published widely on the arts, architecture, and urbanism of Africa and its diasporas and on queer studies. Nelson is professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also served as director of the African Studies Center. He has held visiting appointments at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Nelson is also a member of the Kress Foundation’s Board of Trustees and has been honored by the Association of Art Historians (Great Britain) and the Society of Architectural Historians. Before assuming the role of dean, he was the Center’s Andrew W. Mellon Professor. Nelson earned a BA in studio art from Yale University and an AM and a PhD in art history from Harvard University.