Johanna K. Taylor is an assistant professor at The Design School affiliated with the Herberger Institutes transdisciplinary Creative Enterprise and Cultural Leadership MA program. She received a doctorate in public and urban policy at The New School in 2016 and master's in arts management at Carnegie Mellon in 2007. She has taught classes in community engagement, cultural policy, urban studies, socially engaged art, and urban research methods. Her work is grounded in a core value of art as catalyzing force in advancing justice in daily life, and her research explores questions of cultural equity through the intersection of art, community, policy, and place. As an arts administrator and programmer, she worked at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, BRIC Arts|Media, and A Blade of Grass among other organizations. Before joining ASU, she was a Creative Cities Fellow at Stanford University.

Her recently released book The Art Museum Redefined: Power, Opportunity, and Community Engagement explores the shifting agendas of art museums as they begin to look beyond gallery walls to more intentionally collaborate with their local communities. The book draws on global examples of museums that extend beyond their typical roles of organizing exhibitions and collections to build dedicated partnerships with artists, community organizers, local organizations, community development organizations, business improvement districts, city officials, and others. The book finds that cooperation is critical to build a community practice, requiring museums to disrupt organizational hierarchies by sharing decision making power with artists and communities.