Dr. Amalia Mesa-Bains, director of the Department of Visual and Public Art, is an independent artist and cultural critic. Her works, primarily interpretations of traditional Chicano altars, resonate both in contemporary formal terms and in their ties to her community and history. As an author of scholarly articles and a nationally known lecturer on Latino art, she has enhanced understanding of multiculturalism and reflected major cultural and demographic shifts in the United States.

Dr. Mesa-Bains was the curator for the traveling Ceremony of Memory exhibit and the regional committee chair (Northern California) for the exhibition Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985 (CARA). She also has written extensively on Chicano art and culture. Among her many awards is a 1992 Distinguished MacArthur Fellowship. She has served as a consultant for the Texas State Council on the Arts and the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and is a former Commissioner of Arts for the City of San Francisco.

She holds a BA in painting from San Jose State University, an MA in interdisciplinary education from San Francisco State University, and an MA and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the School of Clinical Psychology, Wright Institute in Berkeley.