Susie J. Silbert is a curator, writer, and speaker known for her innovative approaches to interpreting the built world and her thought leadership on contemporary glass. She is a champion of new ways of thinking, a teller of stories that haven’t been told, and an advocate for artists and the creatively engaged.

Trained in glassworking and design history, Silbert approaches her work with a sensitivity to process and material possibility. She is motivated by the complex and intertwined histories of material, maker, and making and she believes in the power of art to create new + authentic connections between people.

Her most well-known exhibition, New Glass Now, demonstrates her artist-centered curatorial approach. An international survey of contemporary glass featuring over 100 artists from 31 countries, New Glass Now catalyzed new conversations in contemporary glass, widening the field’s tent, and engaging new artists and audiences alike. The show opened at The Corning Museum of Glass in 2019 and traveled to Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. and the Toyama Museum of Glass in Japan.

Silbert is a highly entertaining public speaker and a gifted writer and editor. For seven years, she was the editor of New Glass Review overseeing the publication’s redesign with an aim toward increasing engagement and accessibility ahead of its 40th anniversary. Her writing has appeared in a range of magazines, journals, books, and exhibition catalogues including for the Chrysler Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Museum for Art in Wood, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Toyama Museum of Glass Art, and UrbanGlass.

But her richest area of work is as a creative incubator, working with individuals and institutions to nourish their creative spirits, surface new ideas and bring them to fruition.

Silbert cut her curatorial chops first as the in-house curator for Studio Glass innovator Mark Peiser and then at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. After getting her MA in decorative arts, design history, and material culture at Bard Graduate Center, with stints at the Met and the American Craft Council, she moved back to Houston for a curatorial position at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Later, she taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and worked as an independent curator before joining The Corning Museum of Glass as Curator of Postwar and Contemporary, a position she held from 2016 - 2023.

She is currently at work on High Style: The Art of Cannabis Pipes, an exhibition and publication project debuting at the Toledo Museum of Art in August 2026.