Layla Diba is an independent scholar, art advisor and curator.  She has been Director and Chief Curator of the Negarestan Museum in Teheran (1975–79), art advisor for the Private Secretariat of HM Queen Farah of Iran, and Hagop Kevorkian Curator of Islamic Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. From 1994 to 2006, she was Visiting Professor of Islamic Art at Bard Graduate Center.  In 2006, Dr. Diba was invited to develop programming and strategy for the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum and to serve on the Museum’s Asian Art Council and Middle East Focus Group. She has curated the landmark The Qajar Epoch: Royal Persian Paintings exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1998, exhibitions at the Lehmann-Maupin and Leila Taghinia Milani Heller Galleries in New York and served as an advisor to the Doris Duke Foundation. Her recent publications include Turkmen Silver Ornaments from the Marshall and Marilyn Wolf Collection (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011).  In 2013 she co-curated Iran Modern, the first major exhibition devoted to Iranian Modern Art for the Asia Society Museum, New York (Sept. 5, 2013- January 5, 2014) and co-edited the accompanying publication.  Dr. Diba holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University.  Her articles, including over 40 essays on Iranian art, have appeared in numerous scholarly publications. Dr. Diba sits on the Board of The Soudavar Memorial Foundation. She is also a collector of Persian and Islamic art and a benefactor and advocate for numerous Persian cultural causes.