S. Marquette Folley has over 20 years of professional career association with the Smithsonian Institution starting with an internship with Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon,  a fellowship with Dr. Spencer Crew at the National Museum of American History to the present position as a project director/exhibition developer for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). 

Her educational discipline rests in African American cultural studies with the inclusion of art and literary criticism.  In her present position, she oversees, conceives, and develops exhibitions and related programming designed to broaden the educational and audience goals of the Smithsonian Institution.  Essential aspects of this position include: coordinating and directing diverse creative teams that include designers, producers and historians; developing and creating exhibition concepts and approaches; administrating exhibition budgets from $2,000,000.00 to 75,000.00 with an average budget at $500,000.00; developing and maintaining public outreach collaborations; and conceiving educational lecture and performance outreach programs. 

Abbreviated Professional Profile:

Curatorial and project director for the traveling exhibitions: 381 Days: The Montgomery Bus Boycott Story; Lunch Box Memories; Close Up in Black: African American Film Posters, 2000-2007, SITES. 

Project director/exhibition developer: We Shall Overcome: Photographs from the American Civil Rights Era, This Land is Your Land: The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie, Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy, Before Freedom Came: African American Life in the Antebellum South, 1991-2003, SITES

Co-creator and co-curator of book and exhibition on the art of jazz entitled, Seeing Jazz, Smithsonian Institution/Chronicle Press and SITES, 

Co-producer the symposium, Hair Braiding: The Art of Sculpture or Performance, Smithsonian Institution Division of Performing Arts, Program in Black American Culture.Program Co-Director of educational outreach program, Wynton Talks Jazz, National Museum of Natural History; Project Director, Rhythm and Blues Foundation and Awards Program (inaugural year, National Museum of American History). 

Curatorial, design consultant on SITES/National Museum of American History team for the exhibition, Duke Ellington: Beyond Category,(SITES), 1988-1990;  curatorial and research assistant, Field to Factory: Afro-American Migration, 1915-1940, National Museum of American History,1981-1986;

As a member of National Museum of American History, Division of Musical History curatorial team  worked to expand the jazz holdings of the Smithsonian under the congressional mandate celebrating jazz and the art of Duke Ellington; liaison for the Rhythm and Blues Foundation's inaugural year at the Museum of American History.

Lectures include Cooperstown Graduate Studies Program; Munson-Williams Proctor Museum; Smithsonian Institution, African American Association of Museums.

Consultations include the Experience Music Project (EMP), Seattle, WA on developing conceptual approach to creating a contemporary music museum; the Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, CT on the exhibition and public education programming for story on the Amistad; Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, VA  on development  of interactive components for exhibition on Reconstruction, and the Richmond Black History Museum, Richmond, VA on Brown v. Board of Education exhibition content and design, State of Florida, Virginia Key Trust Historical site and museum. 

Educational Profile:

Howard University, Afro-American Studies Major; Art History Minor

M.I.T, Graduate Seminar, “Jazz in the American Critical Tradition,” 1989