James T. Ulak

James T. Ulak serves as President of the United States-Japan Foundation since September 2019, bringing extensive experience in Japanese art and cultural diplomacy. His distinguished career includes a twenty-five-year tenure at the Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, where he served as curator of Japanese art, head of collections and research, chief curator, and deputy director. His academic expertise centers on the history of narrative painting in fourteenth and fifteenth-century Japan, earning his PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1994. Before his museum career, which included positions at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and The Art Institute of Chicago, Ulak spent significant time in Japan during the 1970s and early 1980s, where he directed Kibo no le, a municipal social service center in Kyoto, and developed cultural immersion programs. His contributions to US-Japan relations earned him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette from the Japanese government in 2010