Louvre Abu Dhabi announced on Tuesday, October 7, that Dr Souraya Noujaim, an art historian and curator specialising in Islamic art and archaeology, has been appointed the museum's new director. Noujaim most recently led the Department of Islamic Arts at the Louvre in Paris, a collection spanning about 18,000 works. Her ties to the Abu Dhabi museum run deep: she helped shape its curatorial vision during its early development, then served as its first Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director from February 2018 to April 2023, a period in which she helped expand the permanent collection through new acquisitions and launched the Art Here exhibition series. "Louvre Abu Dhabi holds a special place in my professional and personal journey," Noujaim said. "Having had the privilege of contributing to the museum's development over many years, I am honoured to return to Abu Dhabi and lead this remarkable institution into its next chapter." She succeeds Manuel Rabate, who had led the museum since 2016 and whose departure was announced in February this year. Louvre Abu Dhabi opened on Saadiyat Island in November 2017 and will mark its tenth anniversary in 2027. Since opening, it has welcomed more than eight million visitors, staged 22 temporary exhibitions and held five editions of Art Here. The makeup of its permanent collection has also shifted significantly: at opening, roughly 30 per cent of displayed works belonged to the museum itself, a share that has now grown to nearly two-thirds, reflecting a decade of steady acquisitions under the institution's own curatorial direction.