Joanna Bigfeather was appointed director of the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in April 1999.
A Western Cherokee brought up in New Mexico, Joanna Osburn Bigfeather graduated from IAIA in 1987 and moved to the University of California at Santa Cruz to study for a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Then she attended the State University of New York in Albany, where she obtained a Master in Fine Arts. While exhibiting extensively prints, ceramics and installations, she became the director of the art gallery at the American Indian Community House (AICH) in New York City for about six years. She then moved to Santa Fe where she felt she belonged.
She resigned from her position as museum director in early 2002, rather unexpectedly according to Chuck Dailey who was called back from retirement to become the interim director until another director could be appointed. He had worked for more than twenty years as a professor of museum studies at IAIA and had also been the museum director for some time.