Summary
Jeff Steward is a director-level technology leader who has spent 13+ years designing and running digital infrastructure for major art museums, currently leading a 10-person team at the Harvard Art Museums. He builds systems that make cultural collections accessible—launching open APIs used by thousands, a public R&D Lightbox Gallery, and the museum’s first technology fellowship—while overseeing a ~$1M operating budget. His work bridges production infrastructure (collections databases, image pipelines, APIs) and experimental research in computer vision, data visualization, and interoperability, including a reference dataset of over 70 million AI-generated art descriptions. A trained artist and persistent tinkerer, he also prototypes playful web bots, game engines, and baking-fueled web projects that explore new modes of storytelling and audience engagement. Based in Vermont, he combines systems-based thinking with practical engineering and museum practice to advance sustainable, open cultural data. Not obvious from his title: he founded experimental institutions such as the Museum of the Modern Snowglobe and runs a long-running personal baking site that doubles as a software project.
13 years of coding experience
11 years of employment as a software developer
BA, Painting and Print Making, BA, Painting and Print Making at Temple University