Marianna Gatto is the executive director emeritus and cofounder of the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles, a historian, author, and cultural leader with over two decades of experience in public history, museums, nonprofit leadership, and education. She served as the museum's director from 2010-2026.

Gatto began working to establish an Italian American museum in Los Angeles in 2005 while serving as a museum administrator under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. She led fundraising, preservation, and advocacy efforts to restore the historic Italian Hall—once a center of Italian community life in the early 20th century—and transform it into a permanent home dedicated to Italian American history and culture in Southern California.

Gatto became director of the IAMLA in 2010, and oversaw development, exhibitions, collections, programming, education, communications, fundraising, and preservation. She raised millions in public and private dollars for the IAMLA and helped negotiate the historic, forty-year agreement between the City of Los Angeles (who owns Italian Hall) and the IAMLA foundation.

Gatto authored and curated IAMLA’s award-winning permanent exhibition about the history of Italian Americans. She created eleven temporary exhibitions for the museum, including:

• The Sicilian Cart: History in Movement (2017) in partnership with the Musca Museum of Sicily, Dolce & Gabbana, and SMEG

• A Real Boy: The Many Lives of Pinocchio (2022), the IAMLA’s most popular exhibition, which examines the enduring cultural legacy of one of literature’s most popular characters

• Woven Lives: Exploring Women’s Needlework from the Italian Diaspora  (2022), which received a grant from the Endowment for the Humanities and won an Excellence in History Award from the American Association for State and Local History.

• Italianitá: Artists of the Italian Diaspora Examine Identity (2017), which united artists never before exhibited together, from Joseph Stella to Ralph Fasanella.

• Creative Minds: Italian American Inventors and Innovators (2025), which explores 100 Italian and Italian American inventors and vanguards.
• Louis Prima: Rediscovering a Musical Icon (2023), which examines the life and legacy of the Italian American jazzman and pop culture icon, which later traveled to New Jersey.

• Fantasy World: Italian Americans in Animation (2019), which later traveled to New York.

• Mangia! The Evolution of Italian Food in the United States (2026), which explores the history of Italian food in America—from the largely unfamiliar foodways of a marginalized immigrant community to one of the nation’s most popular and influential cuisines.

Gatto’s contributions to Italian and Italian American culture and public history have earned recognition. In 2018, she was selected as one of the State of California’s Women of the Year.  In 2020, she was knighted by the Italian Republic as a Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy). In 2024, the Italian Sons and Daughters of America named Gatto a Donna Distinta for her outstanding leadership and advocacy within the Italian American community.  In 2026, Los Angeles Magazine chose her as one of the 26 Women of the Year.

Gatto’s second book, The Italian Americans of Los Angeles: A History (2024), is the first comprehensive history of Italian Americans in Los Angeles. It contributes valuable scholarship surrounding the nation’s fifth-largest Italian American populations and one of its oldest (and most overlooked).

Gatto has appeared in various media productions, including the PBS series The Italian Americans (2015), and A Little Fellow: The Life of AP Giannini (2025). She is guest co-host of the Italian American Podcast and has consulted for the Discovery Channel, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, National Geographic, and Netflix.

During her tenure at the IAMLA, Gatto created signature museum events, such as Taste of Italy, a showcase of Italian cuisine, wine, and culture, which endured 16 years. She authored the IAMLA’s California Content Standards curricula, grew the IAMLA’s collection into a repository of several thousand items, and spearheaded the collection’s cataloging and public accessibility.