María Magdalena Campos-Pons is the Coneliuos Vanderbilt Endowed Chair Professor of Fine Arts, Drawing, Performance and Installation at Vanderbilt University. Campos-Pons is the founder of the Ríos Intermitentes International Biennale in Matanzas, Cuba, and the award-winning program Engine for Art, Democracy, and Justice (EADJ). She is a recipient of Columbia University Barnard College Medal of Distinction (2023), an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and a 2023 MacArthur Fellow.

Campos-Pons graduated in 1980 from the National School of Art in Havana, Cuba. She went on to study painting at Havana’s Universidad de las Artes (ISA). In 1988, she attended the MFA Program at Mass College of Art and Design where she focused on interrelated media and painting. In 2017 she received a Dr Honoris Causa from Montserrat College of Art.

Campos-Pons is a descendant of Nigerians brought to the island in the 19th century and Hispanic and Chinese immigrants to Cuba. Inspired by the traditions, rituals, and practices of her ancestors, her work explores the legacy of slavery and is deeply autobiographical, using herself and her family as subjects. She creates historical narratives that illuminate the spirits of people and places, present and past. According to her, she collects and tells "stories of forgotten people in order to foster dialogue to better our time."

Campos-Pons' practice combines traditional media, such as painting and sculpture, with installation and contemporary media, including large-format Polaroid photography, video, film, and performance.