Daniel Weiss is Homewood Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and President Emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he served from 2015-2023. As The Met’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Weiss was responsible for the overall leadership of the Museum, including establishing its key strategic, institutional, and capital priorities. He was appointed to the CEO position in June 2017, after serving two years as the Museum’s President.

A scholar of art history and a seasoned leader of complex institutions, Weiss was previously President and Professor of Art History of Haverford College and, from 2005 to 2013 of Lafayette College. He holds an MBA from Yale and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in western medieval and Byzantine art, where he joined the art history faculty and in six years rose to full professor and then chair of the department. Three years later, he became the James B. Knapp Dean of Johns Hopkins’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

The author of seven books and numerous articles, Weiss has published and lectured widely on a variety of topics, including the art of the Middle Ages and the Crusades, higher education, museums, and American culture. His most recent books include Why the Museum Matters (Yale University Press, 2022), In That Time: Michael O’Donnell and the Tragic Era of Vietnam (Public Affairs, 2019), and Remaking College: Innovation and the Liberal Arts (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Earlier in his career, Weiss spent four years as a management consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton in New York.

In his work at Johns Hopkins, Weiss will be teaching on museums and non-profit leadership as well as the art of the Middle Ages and Late Antiquity.  His scholarly work in art history has focused on the art of the Crusader era, medieval pilgrimage, Byzantium, and the art and architecture of Romanesque and Gothic Europe.  He is the recipient of three teaching awards from Johns Hopkins.

The recipient of three honorary degrees as well as fellowships from Harvard University, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Weiss received the Business and Society Award from the Yale School of Management, the Van Courtlandt Elliott Award from the Medieval Academy of America for scholarship in medieval studies, both the Monumental Alumni Award and the Distinguished Alumni Award from The George Washington University, and he was inducted into the Society of Scholars at Johns Hopkins in 2018.

An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations, Weiss is Vice Chair of the Board of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Vice Chair of the Library of America, a member of the University Council at Yale, and a trustee of the Wallace Foundation and the Posse Foundation.

“The Three Solomon Portraits in the Arsenal Old Testament and the Construction of Meaning in Crusader Painting,” Arte Medievale, VI/2 (1992), 15-38, (Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize).

“Biblical History and Medieval Historiography:  Rationalizing Strategies in Crusader Art,” Modern Language Notes, 108 (1993), 710-737.

“Architectural Symbolism and the Decoration of the Sainte-Chapelle,” Art Bulletin, LXXVII/2 (1995), 308-320.

with Nechama Tec, “A Historical Injustice:  The Case of Masha Bruskina,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, VII/3 (1997), 366-77.

“Hec est domus Domini firmiter edificata:  The Image of the Temple in Crusader Art,” The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art in Jewish Art, 23/24 (1997-1998), 210-17.

with Nechama Tec, “The Heroine of Minsk:  Eight Photographs of an Execution,” History of Photography, 23/4 (1999), 322-330.

“Portraying the Past, Illuminating the Present:  The Art of the Morgan Library Picture Book,” in The Book of Kings:  Art, War, and the Morgan Library’s Medieval Picture Bible (Walters Art Museum/Third Millennium Publishing, 2002), 11-35.

“The Old Testament Image and the Rise of Crusader Culture in France,” in France and the Holy Land:  Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 3-21.

“Morgan Library Picture Book,” Grove Art Online (Oxford Art Online, September 2010).

“Challenges and Opportunities in the Changing Landscape,” in Remaking College: Innovation and the Liberal Arts (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 25-40.

with Jesse Lytle, “Next-Generation Challenges for Liberal Education,” The Evolution of Liberal Arts in the Global Age, edited by Peter Marber and Daniel Araya (Routledge, 2017), 70-83.

with Jesse Rosen, “Leading Institutional Change: New Thinking About Mission, Values, and Purpose,” in Are the Arts Essential? edited by Alberta Arthurs and Michael DiNiscia (New York University Press, 2022), 30-43.

Essays and Reviews

Review of A. Erlande-Brandenburg, The Cathedral:  The Social and Architectural Dynamics of Construction (Cambridge, 1994) in the Art Bulletin, LXXVIII/1 (1996), 164-166.

“Ten Issues We Can’t Afford to Ignore,” Arts and Sciences Magazine, (Johns Hopkins University, Spring/Summer 2005), 24-27.

“Balancing Fundamental Tensions,” Inside Higher Ed, April 30, 2007.

“Lafayette: A Hero of Two Worlds.”  The Orange County Register, September 10, 2007.

“Society Needs Honest Talk About Alcohol,” The Express-Times, August 29, 2008.

“How the Vietnam War Changed Political Poetry,” Literary Hub, November 20, 2019.

“Five Best on Collectors,” The Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2022.