The Museum of Fine Arts has named Christina Yu Yu the Matsutaro Shoriki Chair, Art of Asia. MFA director Matthew Teitelbaum made the announcement, saying Yu Yu will lead a team of curators in overseeing the museum’s collection of more than 100,000 works from Japan, China, Korea, South and Southeast Asia, and the Islamic world.

An alumna of Wellesley College and Boston University who began her curatorial career at the MFA as a graduate intern, Yu Yu currently serves as director of the USC Pacific Asia Museum, one of the few museums in the United States dedicated exclusively to the arts of Asia.

In addition to working on exhibitions, acquisitions, and programs at PAM, Yu Yu led the museum’s first inventory and survey of its collection and developed a master plan for a large-scale renovation that transformed the museum building from a former private residence to a state-of-the-art public space.

Yu Yu was born and raised in China and attended Wellesley College. She earned her master’s degree from BU and completed her PhD at the University of Chicago, with a dissertation focused on paintings from China’s Yuan dynasty.