Denis Mwaura is a curator and writer based in Chicago. He is currently the Assistant Director at Gallery 400, UIC. Exhibitions and public programs his curatorial research has supported include, A Species of Theft (2022) and Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art at Gallery 400; Malangatana: Mozambique Modern (2020), Naughty Nymphs in the Courtyard of the Favorites (2022), Igshaan Adams: Desire Lines (2022) at the Art Institute of Chicago; Wong Ping: Digital Fables (2021) and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich: Speculative Archives (2021) at Conversations at the Edge. His writings on artists including Kapwani Kiwanga, Daniela Rivera, and Senzeni Marasela appear in the Boston Art Review and Africanah.

Mwaura was the 2021 recipient of the Schiff Foundation Fellowship for Critical Architectural Writing, an award granted by the Department of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. He received his MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.