Cynthia Goodman is an independent curator and writer born in, and currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is particularly well-known for her work with emergent art technologies, particularly those relevant to Computer Art. Cynthia Goodman received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982. She curated the traveling exhibition Digital Visions: Computers and Art , Everson Museum of Art in 1987, and the InfoArt Pavilion at Kwangju Biennale (1995), co-curated with artist Nam June Paik. Both shows were accompanied by exhibition catalogs, the latter in CD-ROM format, innovated as one of the first of its kind. Following the success of the Digital Visions Cynthia briefly taught art history and aesthetics in the Master of Fine Arts program in Computer Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Goodman's early career was devoted to her investigations into the work and legacy of artist Hans Hofmann and his contemporaries, culminating in a PhD dissertation from University of Pennsylvania in 1982. She was awarded the position of Chester Dale Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Goodman worked on a catalogue raisonné for the artist and towards the end of her time organized Hans Hofmann as Teacher: Drawings by His Students, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979. She also authored the monograph and exhibition catalog Hans Hofmann, for Abbeville Press in 1986 and organized a retrospective exhibition for the artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1990.
Goodman has acted as advisor to corporations including IBM, Polaroid, and Time Warner. In addition she acted as Director of the IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, New York from 1987-1990. She was appointed Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was Director of Arttransition '90, an international conference on art, science and technology.