Contributors

Christine Bolli is an Art Historian who focuses particularly on Romanesque architecture in Provence, as well as Cistercian architecture. She received both her BA and her Masters from the History of Art and Architecture Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is currently a PhD candidate there. Christine works as an instructor for Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara and Ventura, as well as for CSU Channel Islands. She also writes for the curated art news website Art Fix Daily.Doris Bravo is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at The University of Texas at Austin, specializing in twentieth-century Latin American art. Her dissertation examines the performative and site-specific work of the School of Valparaíso, an experimental architecture school in Chile. She holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies and Spanish Literature from the University of Chicago and completed her M.A. in Art History at UT-Austin in 2008. She is currently completing her dissertation research in Chile with support from the Institute of International Education Graduate Fellowship for International Study.

Doris Bravo is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at The University of Texas at Austin, specializing in twentieth-century Latin American art. Her dissertation examines the performative and site-specific work of the School of Valparaíso, an experimental architecture school in Chile. She holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies and Spanish Literature from the University of Chicago and completed her M.A. in Art History at UT-Austin in 2008. She is currently completing her dissertation research in Chile with support from the Institute of International Education Graduate Fellowship for International Study.

Dr. Catherine Burdick holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago, specializing broadly in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and specifically in relationships between portraiture and hieroglyphs in Classic Maya sculpture. She has taught art history at several institutions, including Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and UIC. From 2012 to 2014 she holds a postdoctoral position in the Centro de Patrimonio Cultural and the Escuela de Arte at Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile where she is researching Chilean pictorial identity and the colonial maps of Fr. Alonso de Ovalle.

Emily Casden received her B.A. in art history from Williams College in 2006, and her M.A. in art history from Hunter College in 2011. Her thesis on the Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni won the Shuster Award for an Outstanding Masters Thesis from the Hunter College School of Arts and Sciences, and she is currently preparing the manuscript for publication. From 2006 to 2009 Ms. Casden worked in the Curatorial Affairs department of The Jewish Museum in New York, followed by brief stints as a blogger, research assistant, TA, and private collection assistant during her graduate studies. She rejoined The Jewish Museum in 2010 as a Curatorial Assistant. She specializes in twentieth-century modernism, with a strong interest in German Expressionism, Futurism, Interwar and Postwar art, and art theory and aesthetics. 

Pippa Couch holds a Masters in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, specializing in the art from Antiquity to Byzantium. She has worked in various aspects of arts education since 2000 and is currently working as a gallery educator at the Courtauld Insititute Galleries and the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. Pippa currently works as the Schools Officer at the National Gallery, London.

Dr. Joseph Dauben is Distinguished Professor of History at Herbert H. Lehman College and the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. He has published widely on many subjects including the History of Science,  the History of Mathematics, the Scientific Revolution, Sociology of Science, and Intellectual History. He received his Ph.D. at Harvard University.

Dr. David Drogin has been a professor in the History of Art Department at SUNY's Fashion Institute of Technology since 2004 and has previously taught at Wesleyan University, Harvard and Yale. He currently serves as coordinator of the department's Visual Arts Management major. A specialist in Italian Renaissance art, he received his BA from Wesleyan University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He has published numerous book reviews for "Renaissance Quarterly" and has contributed chapters on Bolognese art and patronage to several edited volumes. Dr. Drogin has presented papers on a variety of Italian Renaissance subjects at conferences of the Renaissance Society of America, as well as at symposia held at Johns Hopkins University, Cambridge University, and the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum, among others.

Dr. Davor Džalto is currently a professor of history and theory of art at the University of Nish. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg, on the topic “The Role of the Artist in Self-Referent Art.” He wrote his postdoctoral thesis at Münster University,on the topic of human creative capacities. As an honorary or visiting professor he has taught at many universities, in Europe and USA. He has published four books and over 20 articles. The topics discussed in them range from the history of modern and contemporary art and iconography, to theory of authorship, history of the art concept, theory of creativity and political and social implications of art as a modern institution. As an artist, he works in traditional as well as expended media (video art, performance, painting, and sculpture). He has presented his work at more than 15 group and one-man exhibitions.

Dr. Allen Farber has taught at the State University of New York College at Oneonta since 1981. He has been responsible for teaching a range of courses including upper level courses in Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance art. He received his PhD from Cornell University in 1980. His thesis focused on the study of the secondary decoration of early fifteenth century Parisian manuscripts.  An article entitled "Considering a Marginal Master" published in Gesta (32, 1993, pp. 21-39) presents some of the results of this research.  Since 1999, he has devoted his scholarly activity to developing web pages to support his course work. These are accessible through the Art History course page.  He has also created a web site dedicated to his study of The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein. He is currently working on a site entitled "Marginal Matters" in which he presents his ongoing research in manuscript studies.

Abram Fox is a doctoral candidate in art history and archaeology at the University of Maryland, where he specializes in eighteenth century British and American painting. In addition to his dissertation research on the transatlantic artistic and educational exchange centered on the workshop of Benjamin West, Abram has published work on twentieth century Czech postcards, comic books in art history, and civic engagement initiatives at large research-intensive universities. He currently serves as the program coordinator for the Honors Humanities program at the University of Maryland, and freelances as a docent for an international tour company.

Dr. Bernard Frischer authored, or co-authored, six books and many articles on virtual heritage and on the Classical world and its survival. He received his B.A. in Classics summa cum laude from Wesleyan University in 1971 and his Ph.D. in Classics summa cum laude from the University of Heidelberg in 1975. He taught Classics at UCLA from 1976 to 2004. He is Professor of Art History and Classics at the University of Virginia, where he also serves as Director of the Virtual World Heritage Laboratory. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania (1993), the University of Bologna (1994), and held the post of Professor-in-Charge of the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (2000-01). He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and he has won research fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (1981, 1996) and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (1997). From 1996 to 2003 he directed the excavations of Horace's Villa sponsored by the American Academy in Rome, and from 1996 to 2004 he was founding director of the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory. Dr. Frischer has overseen many significant modeling projects, including "Rome Reborn,” the virtual recreation of the entire city of ancient Rome within the Aurelian Walls. In 2005 he was given the Pioneer Award of the International Society for Virtual Systems and Multimedia. He is the 2009 recipient of the Tartessos Prize of the Spanish Society of Virtual Archaeology. In 2010 he won a prize fellowship from the Zukunftskolleg, a center of excellence at the University of Konstanz.

Julia Fischer is a Lecturer of Art History at Georgia Southern University. She has also taught at Columbus College of Art and Design, Denison University, and The Ohio State University.  In 2012 she will complete her doctoral studies at The Ohio State University specializing in Greek and Roman art and archaeology. Her research explores the iconography of Roman imperial cameos. A lover of all things Roman, from gelato to the exhaust fumes of mopeds, she can't wait to teach abroad in Italy in 2013. 

Meg Floryan earned her Masters in American Fine & Decorative Art from Sotheby's Institute of Art in New York. While her graduate research focuses on visual and thematic developments in mid twentieth-century children's book illustration, she has also studied ancient art and artifacts at Tulane University in New Orleans. Meg's other interests include contemporary art trends, specifically new developments in the ways in which technology and the Internet aid in spreading information, increasing arts participation, and creating an interactive forum.

Dr. Shana Gallagher-Lindsay has taught the history of Western art at the Fashion Institute of Technology, S.U.N.Y., since 1994. Her areas of specialization are modern and contemporary art, and photography. She completed her Ph.D. at the City University of New York Graduate Center in 2003, writing her dissertation on the installation artist, Marcel Broodthaers. More recently she has publicly lectured and published on the topic of sacrifice as it is treated in contemporary art.

Dr. Senta German is Associate Professor in the departments of Classics and General Humanities and Art and Design at Montclair State University. She earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1999 in Aegean, Greek and Ancient Near Eastern art and archaeology, writing her dissertation on images of performance in Aegean Bronze Age art, which was published by Archaeopress. Her areas of interest are the Aegean Bronze Age, the early Greek Iron Age, performance, gender and cultural heritage issues. She has over fifteen years experience in excavation and material study in North America, Europe and Asia. She serves on the Board of SAFE/Saving Antiquities for Everyone.  

Dr. Beth S. Gersh-Nesic is the director of the New York Arts Exchange, www.nyarts-exchange.com, an arts education service which offers tours, lectures and curatorial services. She earned her Ph.D. in art history from the City University of New York Graduate Center and currently teaches art history at Purchase College. She teaches French to English translation at Manhattanville College. Her specialty is Modern Art with an emphasis on Picasso and Cubism. Her dissertation was published as The Early Criticism of André Salmon: A Study of His Thoughts on Cubism (Garland Publishing, 1991), which was followed by André Salmon on French Modern Art (Cambridge University Press, 2005), a translation of Salmon’s first two books on art La jeune peinture française (1912) and La jeune sculpture française (1919) with annotations and an introduction. More information is available on the official André Salmon website: www.andresalmon.org which Beth founded with Professor Jacqueline Gojard, University of Paris, Sorbonne III, executor of Salmon’s literary estate. Beth also published numerous essays on Salmon including the catalogue essay on Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon (named by André Salmon) for the exhibition The Demoiselles Revisited (Francis Naumann Fine Art, 2007). Beth is a Contributing Writer and Art Critic for About.com Art History and has partnered with Cultural Study Abroad to offer art tours in France. Come join us!

Dr. Parme Giuntini received her Ph.D. from UCLA in 1995 where she focused on 18th century British portraiture and the development of a modern domestic ideal.  Since 2003, she has directed the Art History program at Otis College of Art and Design where she has been active in teaching and supervising  curricular changes that advance a stronger integration of theory and encourage critical thinking.  Her scholarly interests in portraiture and gender have broadened into fashion  and identity.  She wrote a number of essays and co-edited Garb: A Reader on Fashion and Identity with Kathryn Hagen in 2008.

Monica Hahn has taught art history at the Community College of Philadelphia since 2006. Prior to that, she taught at Philadelphia University.  A graduate of Vassar College, she completed her M.A. in art history at Syracuse University, and is pursuing a Ph.D. at Temple University. Monica enjoys incorporating new digital and web tools into her teaching, and has presented her experiences teaching art history in Second Life at conferences.  She has a blog at www.ArtHistoryinaHurry.com.

Dr. Amy K. Hamlin is a modernist art historian with expertise in early twentieth-century Germanart, particularly the work of Max Beckmann.  In addition to engaging with the interpretive challenges that attend modern German art, she is interested in reception theory, the discourse of art criticism as well as contemporary art.  Hamlin earned degrees in art history from Vassar College (B.A. 1995), the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art (M.A. 2000), and the Institute ofFine Arts at NYU (Ph.D. 2007).  A brief turn at the Museum of Modern Art in the late nineties affirmed her commitment to teaching from original works of art.  She has taught art history and visual culture ata number of institutions including Parsons The New School for Design and Binghamton University.  Hamlin is currently an Assistant Professor of Art History at St. Catherine University, whereshe teaches across the art history curriculum.

Dr. Kristen M. Harkness is a modernist specializing in Russian art of the late-nineteenth century and its relationship to the varied arts and crafts movements developing across Europe at the time. She has a particular interest in Russian women artists and their negotiation of gender boundaries.  Dr. Harkness has also translated catalogues for exhibitions on contemporary women's art from Russia and Eastern Europe for the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Museum Centre of the Russian State University of the Humanities.  She is currently a Lecturer at West Virginia University and an Instructor at University of Pittsburgh.

Sophie Harland gained her undergraduate degree in the history of art from the University of Sussex, where she specialised in eighteenth-century prints and paintings as well as Byzantine art. She went on to complete her Masters at the Courtauld Institute of Art, writing her dissertation on the reproduction of ancient sculpture in eighteenth-century Britain. During her studies she wrote for and edited a number of gallery publications as well as delivering public talks in the Courtauld Gallery. Sophie is currently a learning designer for a major UK e-learning company.

Margaret Herman is a doctoral candidate in art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she specializes in early twentieth-century architecture and urbanism. Her research focuses on issues of modernism and international exchange, and she is writing her dissertation on visionary city planning projects designed in the 1920s and 1930s. She holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and an M.A. from Queens College, and has taught courses in art and architectural history at City College, Parsons, and Montclair State University.

Dr. Heather A. Horton specializes in Medieval and Renaissance art and architectural history, especially the works of the pivotal writer and architect Leon Battista Alberti. Her work critically engages the relationship between theory and practice, language and art, by focusing on questions of authorship, originality, and imitation in the early modern era. She recently published a new interpretation of Alberti's treatises on painting and is preparing a book manuscript titled Leon Battista Alberti and the Renaissance Crisis of the Author. Horton earned her B.A. from DePauw University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. She is a frequent guest lecturer at The Cloisters Museum and has taught art history at New York University, The City University of New York, and Purchase College; currently she teaches art and design at Pratt Institute.  

Denise Johnson has been teaching art history since 2000. She primarily teaches at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, but has also taught at Mt. San Jacinto College in Menifee, Cal State San Bernardino and Nuview Bridge High School in Nuevo.  Denise earned a B.A. in Art and Psychology from UC Riverside and an M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia.  She curated an exhibition of contemporary feminist work for the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art in 2007, called Girly Show: Pin-Ups, Zines and the So-Called Third Wave and an exhibition considering family in all of its configurations called Separation Anxiety in 2010 with Rebecca Trawick, Director of the Wignall Museum. She is also the co-host of the art history podcast Iconomaniacs.

Dr. Juliana Kreinik (former Managing Editor) has taught the History of Photography at SUNY, New Paltz and Pace University, and lectured on German art of the Weimar era. She received her undergraduate degree in art history from Wellesley College, and her Ph.D. from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, where she wrote her dissertation on New Objectivity in German painting and photography of the 1920s. She is a Research Assistant for the Hans Hofmann Catalogue Raisonné Project, with interests in visual literacy and design, and the intersecting histories of art and popular culture. Follow Juliana on Twitter.

Chad Laird has taught in the History of Art Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology since 2005. He received his M.A. in Art History and Criticism form Stony Brook University in 2000, and now concentrates on filmmaking, music and sound art. His works range from sound and video collaborations with transmission artist Tianna Kennedy, soundtracks for experimental films, and his own short film productions with collaborator Jay Hufford.

Julia Langley, after receiving an M.A. in ancient Greek art history from the University of California, Los Angeles, began her career as the assistant director of the Stuart Collection of Sculpture at the University of California, San Diego.  There she also taught art history courses, published articles and produced programming for UCSD-TV.  In 1999, she authored the Public Art Plan for the City of San Diego. Upon moving to Maryland in 2005 Langley shifted her efforts to elementary education and began a Visual Literacy program to integrate art history with the K-5 curriculum while continuing her studies in public art. In 2010, Langley completed the graduate program in Museum Studies at the George Washington University with a study of the war memorials on the National Mall. In addition to her work in elementary education, Langley teaches at Montgomery College in Rockville.

Dr. Ayla Lepine specializes in British nineteenth-century art and architectural history. Prior to obtaining her Ph.D. at The Courtauld Institute of Art in 2011, she studied art history and theology at the University of Victoria and Oxford University. Her thesis focused on intersections between the Gothic Revival and Anglicanism and Oxford and Cambridge, and she continues to be interested in Anglican visual culture. Her writing has been published in The Burlington Magazine, Art and Christianity, and The Architects’ Journal. She has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses at The Courtauld, Warwick University, and King’s College London, and she has worked in education initiatives at the Courtauld Gallery, the V&A, and the Royal Institute of British Architects. Ayla is currently an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at The Courtauld, where she is researching Victorian monastic architecture and material culture, and preparing a book on the Anglo-American early twentieth-century Gothic Revival.

John Machado is an Associate Professor of Art History teaching courses covering the complete Western survey from the prehistoric to contemporary, as well as the Ancient Americas, Africa and the islands of the South Pacific. He has worked at various museums and galleries and taught art history in California, Oregon and Texas. After completing his degree in art history at San Diego State University he earned his MA in art history at the University of Texas at Austin where he is currently completing his Ph.D. Machado's current research focuses on the iconographic analysis of the pre-Columbian mural tradition along the Gulf of Mexico in the state of Veracruz. He is also the co-host and producer of the art history podcast Iconomaniacs.

Elizabeth Massa-MacLeod earned her BA in Fine Art from Lewis and Clark College and recently completed her MA in History of Art from the University of York in England. She has been involved in film and the arts in Oregon for several years, contributing to films as well as live performances, and is involved in cultural organizations including the Collaborative Arts of Portland, the Oregon Natural History Coalition, and the Portland Art Museum. Elizabeth currently works as a research assistant in Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Jennifer N. McIntire teaches art history part-time at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in Far Eastern Art History. The subject of her dissertation was Tang dynasty Buddhist pure land images in cave-temples at Dunhuang in Northwest China. Jennifer’s approach is interdisciplinary. She is interested in understanding art in its original context as well as the relationship between text and image. Making Chinese art accessible and understandable to a wide variety of people is a primary interest.

Jp McMahon is a PhD candidate in Art History at University College Cork, Ireland. He currently teaches and is academic coordinator on the diploma in European Art History in the Adult Education department of the same university. He received his BA (with distinction) in Art History and English in 2005. He has published a number of essay on American art since 1945. 

Jeremy Miller has taught art history at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco since 2006. He received his MA in Art History from San Francisco State University in 2007, with an emphasis on Venetian Art.  His research focuses on the tradition offamily workshops, particularly in Venice, and how production methodsrelate to artistic identity. Jeremy also earned a BFA in photographyfrom the San Francisco Art Institute, and is exploring the foundationsof fashion photography and its relationship to identity. He has beenactive in curriculum development and bringing learner-centeredactivities to students both in and outside the classroom. 

Shadieh Mirmobiny is an adjunct Professor of art history at Folsom Lake College; she also teaches at Sierra College and American River Colleges, where she teaches Western and non-Western art history survey courses. She is currently spending her residency in Italy for her Ph.D. through the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts. Her field of interest and focus of study is critical theory in art history.

 

Dr. Bonnie J. Noble is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She received her Ph.D. in art history from Northwestern University, her MA in art history from the University of Pennsylvania, and her BA in the History and Literature of Religions from Northwestern University. Her specialization is art of the Northern Renaissance, particularly sixteenth-century German painting. She wrote her dissertation on Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Reformation period painting, and has published several articles in international publications and a book on that topic, Lucas Cranach the Elder: Art and Devotion of the German Reformation(University Press, 2009) Her current research focuses on the German artist Hans Baldung Grien, particularly his images of women, from the Virgin Mary to witches and mythological figures. Bonnie has been awarded major research grants from the Kress Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her most recent book is Explorations in Art History (Cognella, 2013). Bonnie continues to conduct research in Germany, and also travels with students to Greece, Turkey, and Italy. Bonnie lives in Charlotte with her husband, her twins, and her cats.

Isaac Peterson is an artist, a writer, and a teacher. Born in Alaska, he now lives in New York City. His writing is published primarily in Flash Art magazine. He teaches full time in the graphic design department of Kingsborough Community College. In his studio work, he focuses on drawing and animation, but constantly returns to oil painting. He loves taking classes at the Art Student's League and loves riding his freewheel fixie through Prospect Park.

 

Ben Pollitt studied Art History and English Literature at Edinburgh University. He teaches Art History at Fine Arts College in Hampstead and Ashbourne College in Kensington. He is an A Level examiner in the subject. 

Dr. Matthew Postal is a historian of 20th-century architecture and urbanism. A graduate of Vassar College and New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, he earned his PhD at the Graduate Center of City University in 1998, where his dissertation examined the relationship between Modernism, museums, and the media. He has taught at various colleges and is currently a professor at the New York School of Interior Design and a researcher at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission where he edited and co-authored the Guide to New York City Landmarks (2009). Matt leads walking tours throughout the city for such cultural organizations as the Municipal Art Society, the Center for the Urban Environment, and the Friends of the High Line. In 2009, he co-authored Ten Architectural Walking Tours in Manhattan.

Rachel S. Ropeik is a 19th century specialist particularly interested in the intersection of art and costume histories. She received her BA in Art History and French from Wellesley College and her MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where she examined 19th century masculinity and 20th century gender theory. She has worked in various aspects of the art world including museums, galleries, and independent appraisals, though she is most passionate about art education. Her museum education work has contributed to a number of British institutions, including The Courtauld Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, and Charleston, and she is now an educator and Focus Unit Coordinator at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Follow Rachel on Twitter.

Josh Rose earned an MA in Art History from the University of North Texas in 2003 . In the years since, he has worked in museum art education, designing adult programming at the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art. His areas of research interest include Surrealism and Surrealist photography, particularly the overlap between documentary photographic practices and surrealist ideology. Other areas of interest include the history and practice of cartooning, comics, and animation. Josh currently serves as an Adjunct Instructor of Art History at several north Texas colleges and universities.

Karen Schifman is an Art Historian who focuses particularly on women artists and the representation of women in visual culture. She received both her BA and MA from California State University, Northridge. Schifman works as a lecturer at CSUN. She also writes a monthly online column for the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art. She curated Memory’s Touch at CSU Channel Islands in 2010 and is currently working on other curatorial projects. She has also contributed to the instructor’s manual of Exploring Art (Wadsworth, Cengage: 2012) and numerous exhibition catalogues.

Brian Seymour is an art historian of the people. He is an Assistant Professor of Art History at the Community College of Philadelphia. He also teaches Humanities and coordinates the Honors Curriculum. Brian has worked in all areas of the art world from the auction house to the museum to the classroom. He runs an art consulting business, working with viewers at all levels to help them to make sense of looking. He has his M.A. from Temple University and is currently studying Mandarin and writing about the Chinese Contemporary Art Market.

Valerie Spanswick earned her BA in art history from the University of Washington in Seattle, which included studying both Classic and Baroque art and architecture in Rome. She lived in Great Britain for 10 years, and while there earned her MA in the history of art from the University of York with a focus on 18th and 19th century British art and architecture. She has worked in publishing and video production and has written for Fine Art Connoisseur on the topic of the Victorian painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. She is currently a technical editor/administrator and lives in Eugene, Oregon. 

Richard Spanswick has an MA in Visual Arts in Contemporary Culture from Keele University, Great Britain.  For more than 25 years he has been a producer, director, writer, and cameraman with a focus on training/corporate video.  In addition he has produced documentaries about the Brontë sisters, and Buddhism. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Dr. Virginia B. Spivey is an art writer specializing in late 20th and 21st century art history and theory. She holds degrees in art history from Duke University (B.A.) and Case Western Reserve University (M.A., Ph.D.).  After working as a museum educator in Northeastern Ohio, she served as Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, where she received the 2004-2005 Distinguished Teaching Award for Non-tenured faculty. Now based in Washington D.C., she develops art history educational materials in addition to her scholarly work, which is currently focused on the relationship of performance to contemporary craft production. 

Dr. Robert Summers received his Ph.D. in Art History at UCLA.  Currently he is a lecturer at Otis College of Art, where he received the Excellence in Teaching award (2010-2011), and he is a Research Associate at UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women (2010-2011).  He has published papers in anthologies, such as Dead History, Live Art and Art & Shame, and academic journals.  He has presented papers and chaired panels at conferences nationally and internationally.  Currently, he is working on his manuscript, tentatively titled Queer-Feminist Tactics: Visualities, Relationalities, and Embodiments, which will be published by Duke University Press in 2011.

Dr. Laurel Taylor received her PhD in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World from the University of Pennsylvania (2001) and teaches in the Departments of Art and Classics at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Her research interests have focused on funerary art and ritual in ancient Italy and exploring the social meaning of death through Etruscan and Roman visual culture. Her current archaeological fieldwork is at the Etruscan and Roman site of Cetamura del Chianti, Italy. She has also directed excavations at Palazzaccio, a Roman period villa located outside of Lucca, Italy, and part of the UNESCO “Project of 100 Roman Farms.” Dr. Taylor also worked with the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell's excavations at the palace of Herod the Great in Caesarea Maritima, Israel, and is preparing final publication of the internal decorative systems at the palace.

Rebecca Taylor is Communications Director at MoMA PS1, one of the oldest and largest non-profit contemporary art institutions in the United States. Prior to joining MoMA PS1, she worked at The Getty and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, and was an instructor at UCLA Extension from 2006-2011, offering courses in contemporary art history and the art world. In addition, she contributes to the Huffington Post (Arts & Culture) and lectures internationally at conferences on museums and non-profits. She received an M.A. in Modern Art, Connoisseurship and the Art Market from Christie’s, New York, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Chapman University in Orange, California.

Dr. Francesca Tronchin earned her Ph.D. in art history from Boston University in 2006, with specializations in Greek and Roman art and archaeology. She is currently the postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles, where she is working on a book project about Roman domestic architecture and decor. Among Francesca’s other interests are classical sculpture (especially funerary art), Roman “museums,” and the reception of classical antiquity in the 18thth centuries. Francesca has excavated in Israel, Greece, and Pompeii; she will return to Italy in June 2009 to document the excavations of the Himera Necropolis in Sicily.

Victoria Valdes is currently undertaking Masters research in Medieval Studies in the Art and Art History at the University of Virginia. She works primarily with early medieval manuscripts, specializing in the Ottonian period. She has previously studied at the University of MaryWashington and worked on Northern Renaissance paintings at the ChryslerMuseum in Norfolk.  She takes great pleasure in her teaching assistanceships and enjoys both deceiphering medieval art and passingon what she's learned to the students at UVA. Her current projectinvolves an examination of female makers in the Ottonian period and their objects.

Rachel Warriner is currently a PhD candidate in the Art History Department at University College Cork, Ireland. Her research focuses on post-war feminist practice. She currently teaches on the diploma course in European Art History in the Adult Education department of the same university. She received a BA (Hons) in Theatre from Dartington College of Art, Devon, UK in 2002 and has since been co-editor of DEFAULT magazine, and has published a number of papers and reviews on post war art and performance.

Louisa Woodville teaches at George Mason University where she specializes in medieval and Renaissance art history, focusing in the social, economic and political context in which artists created works. She lectures regularly for the Smithsonian Associates in Washington D.C., covering topics that include sacred texts as they relate to art and faith; medieval and Renaissance pilgrimages; and a four-week course on medieval art and architecture. Prof. Woodville is involved with the Scholars of Studying Teaching Collaborative (SOSTC), a George Mason Center for Teaching Excellence project in which participants, over the course of two semesters, collaborate with faculty members from other disciplines to examine their own professional practice and research as it relates to teaching. In that vein, Prof. Woodville enjoys attending courses relevant to her field, most recently traveling to Ghent in Belgium to learn about the economy of medieval Burgundy; Montefiascone, Italy, to pulverize roots and bugs in order to recreate medieval illuminators' palettes; and London, where she took several courses on manuscript illumination at the Courtauld Institute. She also enjoyed learning about incunables at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School with Princeton Library’s Paul Neeham and University of Pennsylvania Libraries’ director Will Noel. After receiving an M.A. in Renaissance Studies from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University, Prof. Woodville worked at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the painting department at the Manhattan auction house William Doyle Galleries. When she left New York for Virginia's horse country, she switched her focus to journalism and then academia. She is currently writing a book on Tudor court artist Levina Teerlinc and her father, the 16th-century Flemish illuminator Simon Bening.

Editorial Assistants

Alicia French is a third year Art History student at the University of Chicago, with a particular interest in Latin American and Modern Art. During the school year, she works in the education department of the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago, and she is currently curating her own exhibition dedicated to the works of the photorealist John Baeder at the Masur Museum of Art. Follow Alicia’s blog here (alicialaryn.wordpress.com) or Twitter feed here (twitter.com/alicialfrench).  

Chelsea Emelie Kelly (www.we-wish.net) is the Manager of School & Teacher Programs at the Milwaukee Art Museum. She is particularly interested in the use of technology to make museums and art history accessible, exciting, and participatory. In Milwaukee, she spearheaded the development of the Kohl’s Art Generation Lab: Museum Inside Out interactive gallery, as well as the institution’s blog (http://blog.mam.org). She has presented at the National Art Education Association Conference on the Lab, was a participant in the Teaching Institute in Museum Education, and has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, the Frick Art & Historical Center, and the Carnegie Museum of Art. Additionally, she founded the award-winning Art History Blog (http://arthistory.we-wish.net) as an undergraduate at Vassar College. Follow Chelsea on Twitter (http://twitter.com/MAM_Chelsea).

Rebecca Mir is currently an M.A. candidate in decorative arts and material culture at the Bard Graduate Center. She graduated in 2010 with a B.A. in art history from the Robert E. Cook Honors College at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She wants to help more museums and professors embrace digital media in their educational efforts.

Design and Development

 

Lotte Meijer is interaction designer and information architect for Smarthistory's redesign, as well as a sounding board in between developments. Lotte develops strategies and products to engage visitors with museums, both onsite and online. She combines her interests in art, education and new media in developing museum multimedia products, such as onsite kiosks and audiotours as well as online education strategies. With new media developments as inspiration, she designs innovative ways to engage audiences through experience and education. See her website www.lottemeijer.com and follow Lotte onTwitter.

Design
Mickey Mayo at Mayo Studios

Front-End Development
Matt Haenlin

Back-End Development
Dragan Nikolic

A special thank you to Dr. Joseph Ugoretz, Director of Technology and Learning at Macaulay Honors College, City University of New York. He has been responsible not only for the structure and technology behind the very successful first iterations of the smARThistory web-book, but he has kept a round-the-clock vigil since 2005 ensuring Smarthistory's avilability for our viewers.