Rebecca VanDiver is an Associate Professor of African American Art at Vanderbilt University. She is a writer, a curator, and a teacher.

With a scholarly background rooted in the disciplines of Art History and Black Studies, VanDiver is particularly invested in the work of Black women working in the 20th century. She is the award-winning author of Designing a New Tradition: Loïs Mailou Jones and the Aesthetics of Blackness (Pennsylvania State University Press 2020), a 2023 James A. Porter Book Award winner and 2021 Outstanding Academic Title (Choice Reviews).