Chotsani Elaine Dean is a visual artist and educator. She is an Associate Professor of Art (Ceramics) at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Through a research-driven practice, Dean explores the entangled roots of global history, weaving together the transoceanic trade of commodities like cotton with local narratives, domestic labor, and her ancestral visual languages shaped by the transatlantic middle passage.

Dean’s career is marked by fellowships, awards, and residencies. At the University of Minnesota, she has been named the Waldfogel Scholar of the College, 2025-2028, has received the McKnight Artist Fellowship for Ceramic Artists, and a Connecticut Arts Grant. Additionally, she was awarded a Fulbright Teaching and Research Scholar grant to India, where she was hosted by Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi with research and teaching engagements at the Sanskriti Kendra in New Delhi, the University of Baroda, and the Kriti Gallery, to name a few. Her studio practice has been supported by residencies and fellowships, including the John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry residency in Pottery (Wisconsin), the Women's Studio Workshop (New York), and her selection as the inaugural MJ DO Good Resident at the Red Lodge Clay Center (Montana).

In addition to her studio practice, Dean is a scholar and curator who works to document and amplify historically underrepresented narratives in craft. She is the co-author, alongside donald a. clark, of the book Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists (Schiffer Craft, 2022), a volume that examines the contributions, historical context, and studio practices of 38 artists working in clay. Building upon this scholarship, she curated the exhibition Coastal Sweetgrass: Clay & Land & Craft at the Northern Clay Center and co-curated the traveling exhibition A Gathering: Works from 'Contemporary Black American Ceramic Artists', which has toured to institutions including the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California, the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Springfield Museums in Massachusetts. Additionally, she contributed essays to the Birmingham Museum of Art’s 75th anniversary catalog, Roll Call: 200 Years of Black American Art.

Dean has shown her work widely in solo, group, and invitational exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Solo and group exhibitions, to name a few, include Ebb/Flow at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Huys De Hope at the University of South Carolina's McMaster Gallery, Huys De Hope at the Hunterdon Museum of Art in New Jersey, and Fractured Foundations at the American Museum of Ceramic Art. Her work has also been shown at the South Carolina Biennial and international galleries in India, including the Kriti Gallery in Varanasi and the Art Chamber in Goa.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Minnesota, Dean taught across academic and community arts settings. She has held teaching appointments at the South Carolina School of the Arts,  Hartford Art School, the University of Connecticut, Connecticut College, Quinnipiac University, and Three Rivers Community College.

Dean earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Ceramics from the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford and her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.