José Ruiz brings his expertise in socially engaged art practices to curating Inviting Light’s public programming. He is a Peruvian-born curator and the Director of the Curatorial Practice MFA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Ruiz has organized exhibitions for the Bronx Museum of the Arts, El Museo de Arte de El Salvador, and Queens Museum as well as public art projects supported by the Van Alen Institute, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation. From 2012–2020, he was a co-director of Present Company, a Brooklyn-based exhibition and social space highlighting artists and projects within a curated atmosphere of experimentation and collaboration. His work has been covered by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, ARTnews, Arte Al Dia, Artnet, and The Washington Post.