Li Machado joined Pomona College’s Benton Museum of Art staff this week as a curatorial assistant, a position made possible through the Getty Foundation’s Getty Marrow Emerging Professionals pilot program.

The program’s goal is to “diversify arts museums and nonprofits through meaningful entry level employment and mentoring that are crucial to building lasting arts careers for aspiring professionals from underrepresented groups,” according to the initiative’s webpage.

Machado, a Ph.D. candidate in art history at Temple University with an emphasis on memory art and memorials, presence, and absence, is currently working to build on histories of queer art, queer worldmaking, youth culture, and transnational identity formation in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, according to a Benton news release.

Machado is a recognized Temple University Future Faculty Fellow, a recipient of the inaugural Marcia Hall Research Award, and a former Getty Marrow Undergraduate Intern. As president of the Art History Graduate Organization at Temple, Machado was involved in pushing for an overhauled undergraduate curriculum, anti-racist teaching and improved teaching assistant training.

To learn more, call (909) 621-8283 or email benton@pomona.edu. The museum, at 120 W. Bonita Ave., Claremont, is open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 6 p.m., with extended hours to 10 p.m. on Thursday.