The Herbert Adams Memorial Award is presented as the occasion arises for the advancement of Sculpture, either through service to American Sculpture or to a sculptor for outstanding achievement. The awards committee nominated Cristina Córdova. As an exceptional sculptor who teaches future generations of sculptors, Cristina meets both criteria. Most of all, though, the Society wishes to acknowledge her remarkable body of work.

After completing her BA and MFA, Córdova entered a three-year artists residency program at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. She later served on the board of trustees and continues to teach there today.

She is a recipient of a USA Artist Fellowship, an American Crafts Council Emerging Artist Grant, a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship, and several International Association of Art Critics Awards. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.), the Fuller Craft Museum, (MA), the Mint Museum of Craft and Design (NC), and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (PR), amongst others.

Past recipients of the Herbert Adams Memorial Award include Adeline Pond Adams (1947), Lee Lawrie – who created the iconic Atlas on Fifth Ave at Rockefeller Center (1954); Philip Johnson (1984), Charlotte Dunwiddie (1990), and most recently, Simone Leigh (2023).