Director of al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art (NYUAD) and Associate Professor, Practice of Art History at NYU Abu Dhabi since 2013. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art of the Arab world, Arab art institutions, gender politics in art, and museums and society. Her past positions include: Head of the Arts & Culture Program at the Emirates Foundation (2009-2012). She taught at Sorbonne-Paris Abu Dhabi in the MA History of Art and Museum Studies (2011-2014). Mikdadi was the co-founder and Director of Cultural & Visual Arts Resource/ICWA, one of the first non-profit organizations dedicated to the study and exhibition of the art of the Arab world (USA 1988-2006). She curated numerous exhibitions, including the first Palestinian Exhibition for the 53rd Venice Biennial, 2009, A Century in Flux: Highlights from the Barjeel Collection- Sharjah Art Museum (co-curator 2018), and Forces of Change: Artists of the Arab World (USA 1994). She is the editor of several catalogs, books: Elias Zayat: Cities and Legends, Palestine c/o Venice (2009), Visual Reflections on Arabic Poetry, In/Visible: Arab American Artists, New Visions: Arab Contemporary Art of the 21st Century (co-editor) and wrote the reference guide on the history of twentieth-century art of West Asia, N. Africa, and Egypt for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline. Mikdadi is a founding member of AMCA.

Photo by Sueraya Shaheen