Maria Ann Conelli announced on Tuesday that she would be stepping down as the executive director of the financially beleaguered American Folk Art Museum in July. She said that, after six years at the museum, she would return to academia. Museum spokeswoman Susan Flamm declined to comment on where Conelli would be going.

The museum's deputy director, Linda Dunne, will serve as interim director after Conelli’s departure.

The American Folk Art Museum is mired in financial troubles. It defaulted on interest payments due for $31.9 million worth of bonds issued by the city's Trust for Culture Resources. Earlier this year, the museum missed a $3.7 million interest payment that would have allowed it to stay solvent.

The initial loan was used to construct the American Folk Art Museum’s current building on West 53rd Street, next to the Museum of Modern Art. When the structure first opened in 2001, it became the first new museum to open in the city since the Whitney Museum opened in 1966.

Conelli joined the museum in June of 2005.

“While the museum has afforded me an extraordinary opportunity to immerse myself in the art and culture of the field, when my alma mater reached out to me it was impossible not to accept the position that will allow me to ‘come home,’” Conelli wrote in a statement on the museum's Web site.

Prior to joining the American Folk Art Museum six years ago, Conelli served as the Dean of Graduate Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was also on the faculty at the Parson’s School of Design. She holds graduate degrees from Columbia University and New York University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College.