Michael Brand directed the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from 2005 until 2010, after serving as director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond since 2000. His priorities and achievements at the Getty included resolving Italian and Greek antiquities claims, building new relationships with those governments and exploring ways to bring non-Western art into the exhibition program. He was the first Getty director to lead both the Getty Center and the recently renovated Getty Villa site. He is a member of the Visiting Committee of the Harvard University Art Museums and the International Advisory Board of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. A native of Australia, he was formerly assistant director of the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane and founding head of Asian art at the National Gallery of Australia. He earned his BA (honors) from the Australian National University in Canberra and his MA and PhD from Harvard University.