Prior to her arrival in the Pacific Northwest, she held curatorial positions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts/University of Utah and Indianapolis Museum of Art. She has been an American Scandinavian-Foundation Fellow and a Fulbright scholar at the University of Copenhagen. She has organized dozens of exhibitions with collaborators like the Ateneum Art Museum/Finnish National Gallery and Sweden’s Nationalmuseum, published in numerous scholarly journals, and acquired over 1,000 works of fine and decorative art for collections in her purview. Recently, she was also the commissioning curator of Jónsi: FLÓÐ and co-curator of the traveling exhibition Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century. Leslie is the recipient of the international Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Excellence (First Place) in 2018, the Utah Museums Association Award for Excellence in 2020, and the University of Florida Alumni Association’s “40 Gators Under 40” honor in 2023.
