Spotlight on Research & Accomplishments
Institute Students Receive NYU Fellowships
April 7, 2026The Institute of Fine Arts is pleased to share that five of our students, Huijun Zhao (MA), Elena Evni (MA), Graham Stopa (PhD), Jasmine Smith (PhD), and Emma Fu (PhD) were awarded summer fellowships through NYU GSAS! These fellowships will support the research of each student over the summer months, as they work to develop their master's thesis and doctoral dissertation topics. It is a testament to the strength of our students and their research that the Graduate School has recognized all five awardees with support through this competitive application cycle!
Faculty
Thomas Crow's latest book, Murder in the Rue Marat: A Case of Art in Revolution , is now available .
Marvin Trachtenberg's Brunelleschi and the Moment of the Renaissance , a critical biography of the quietly inventive Renaissance architect, is now available .
Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha , edited by Jean-Louis Cohen and Vanessa Grossman is shortlisted for the Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums, Libraries, Collections, and Exhibitions .
Edward J. Sullivan weaves autobiography with art history to chronicle how Latino artists transformed from marginalized voices to central figures in New York's art scene between the 1970s and 2000s .
Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen has been selected as a resident fellow for the 2025-2026 academic year at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University .
Prita Meier’s latest book, The Surface of Things: A History of Photography from the Swahili Coast , is a finalist for both the African Studies Association’s 2025 Best Book Prize and the 2024 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize for East African Studies.
Dipti Khera is a Scholar in Residence at The Power Institute .
Edward J. Sullivan curated the first institutional survey of the Colombian artist Fanny Sanín in New York, at the Americas Society.
Meredith Martin receives the Iris Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Scholar .
Finbarr Barry Flood's co-authored book "Tales Things Tell: Material Histories of Early Globalisms" received the 2024 ICMA Annual Book Prize by the International Center of Medieval Art .
Alexander Nagel receives a Guggenheim Fellowship .
Joan Kee is the winner of the 2024 Robert Motherwell Book Award for The Geometries of Afro Asia: Art Beyond Solidarity
Students
Megan Gatton's article " Somatic Shape, Artifact Terminology, and the Racialization of Anthropomorphic Figurines " was published in the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology.
Phoebe Herland curated the Rauschenberg exhibition at the Grey Art Museum .
Jinyi Liu receives a 2025/2026 Getty Predoctoral Fellowship
PhD student Kinaya Hassane traveled to the Comoros, Tanzania, & Kenya this summer for dissertation research, with generous support from the Joan & Stanford Alexander Dissertation Award from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Shannah Rose was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).
Scarlett Strauss received a Fulbright Open Study/Research Award to pursue research in Italy for the 2025-2026 academic year.
Summer Sloane-Britt is Assistant Professor of Art History at Occidental College .
Shiro Burnette named to the 2025 cohort of the Center For Curatorial Leadership/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice .
Saarthak Singh was selected as the recipient of the 2024 UC Berkeley South Asia Art & Architecture Dissertation Prize .
Alumni
Fuping Vivi Xie (PhD '25) is Assistant Curator of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rangsook Yoon (PhD '08) named Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Frye Art Museum
Caroline Rafferty (MA '12) elected Chair of the Board of Trustees, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in West Palm Beach
The Hip Hop Museum Appoints Indira A. Abiskaroon Valbuena (MA '18) as Creative Director and Director of Curatorial Affairs
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Appoints Dr. Lisa Brody (PhD '99) as Its New Jack and Mary Ann Frable Curator of Ancient Art.
Riad Kherdeen (MA '16) is now Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois Chicago .
David Bardeen (MA ‘16) recently became an Assistant Curator for European Painting and Sculpture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) focusing on their collection of Italian and Spanish Renaissance and Baroque works.
Saint Vincent College has named Elizabeth E. Barker (PhD '03) as director of the Verostko Center for the Arts and curator of the Saint Vincent Art & Heritage Collections .
The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) has announced the appointment of Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck (PhD '15) as Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs.
Fatima Quraishi (PhD '19) Joins Princeton's Department of Art & Architecture as Assistant Professor of Art and Archaeology.
Blake Oetting (PhD '25) is a Postdoctoral Fellow between the Art History and Rhetoric departments at UC Berkeley and Curatorial Fellow at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive .
Rebecca Lowery (PhD '16) joined the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University as the new curator of exhibitions
The Brooklyn Rail interviewed Marilyn Lavin (PhD '73) about her memoir One Life for Two, The Autobiography of Irving and Marilyn Lavin .
Aimé Iglesias Lukin (MA '17) received the 2025 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Curatorial Work .
Paulina Pobocha , (MA '03) was named Chair and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago .