The Whitney Museum in New York has named Soyoung Yoon as the next director of its Independent Study Program (ISP). She will start in her role on June 16.

Yoon will be only the third director in ISP’s history and the first women and person of color to lead the program. Her hiring comes just over a year after the Whitney controversially paused the ISP. The program did not accept applicants for the 2025–26 cohort, but will welcome its next class in the fall 2027.

Yoon is currently the director of the Fine Arts MFA Program at the Parsons School of Design at the New School in New York. She is also an associate professor of art history and visual studies at the New School’s Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. Previously, she directed Lang College’s Visual Studies Program from 2013 to 2024. At Lang, she tripled its undergraduate program.