For each conference, a small number of Graduate Scholar Awards are given to outstanding graduate students who have an active academic interest in the conference area.  Graduate Scholars perform a critical role in the conference by chairing the parallel sessions, providing technical assistance in the sessions, participating in Talking Circles, and presenting their own research papers.   The Award with its accompanying responsibilities provides a strong professional development opportunity for graduate students at this stage in their academic careers. Meeting experts in the field, interacting with colleagues from other parts of the world, and creating networks and friendships are all additional benefits of this Award.

Graduate Scholars are entitled to free registration and are given special recognition during the conference proceedings. Applicants must be currently enrolled in a graduate studies program. Awardees must be available on-site the day prior to the conference (for orientation and training) and throughout the conference.

The deadline to apply for the 2014 Graduate Scholar Award is 20 April 2014.

Irene Campolmi

Irene Campolmi is an Associated Scholar, Max-Planck Research Group “Objects in the Contact Zone: The Cross-Cultural Lives of Things”.  She is also a PhD Candidate at The Art Museum of the 21st Century (in collaboration with Louisiana Museum, Humblaek),
Department of Aesthetic and Communication, Faculty of Arts, at Aarhus University in Denmark. The provisonal title for her research thesis is “Sustainability in Contemporary Museology. The Art Museum as Archètopy: turning displays from emphatic sites into critical-oriented spaces.” She recieved her MA in Art History from the University of Florence and her BA in Art History and Museolgy from the University of Florence as well. She has worked as a docent for the Acton Art Collection at Vill La Pietra, New York University in Florence; taught Art History and Art Theory and Criticism at the Florence University of the Arts; and as a Assistant Curator, Galleria Continua, San Gimignano; Assistant Curator, National Gallery for Modern Art, Rome. Her reserach interests include Sustainability and Sustainable Development /Museums Cultural Policies /Narratives /Museums Networks / History of Exhibitions /Sociology and Phenomenology/ Anglo-American Collecting; Female Art Collecting in USA and Europe between 19th and 20th century.

DIMITRA CHRISTIDOU

Dimitra, following her BA in History and MA in Education and Design of Learning Resources, undertook doctoral research in Museum Studies at the Institute of Archaeology, University College of London, UK. Funded by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (I.K.Y.), Dimitra’s qualitative research sought to explore visitors’ social interaction and the sociocultural means they used when experiencing seven exhibits across three museums in London. Dimitra has just started working as a museum educator at  the State’s Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, Greece where she currently lives.

Jess Cruz

Jess Cruz will be receiving my Master of Art in Museum Studies in May 2013 from Western Illinois University. In 2007 she received her Bachelor in Arts from Coker College with a concentration in photography and sculpture. From an early age she has enjoyed visiting museums, looking at art and artifacts and learning about who made the objects and why. She is passionate about art, and loves finding ways to open the art world to others. She discovered her way into museum work because it allows her the ability to use her fine art and art history knowledge to help impart excitement about art to a wider audience. She has become a huge advocate for participatory museums and am eager to see how museums will engage and collaborate with audiences in the 21st century. She remains active in education and exhibits because she believes the work of both the educator and exhibit designer as closely related. They are trying to create the best way for people to relate to the works on display. In her personal life she has a wide assortment of hobbies that keep me pleasantly busy. She loves to knit, sew, embroider and she is constantly looking for new ways to make things. She continues to work on her own art, always exploring new techniques and media.

alyssa greenberg

Alyssa Greenberg is a doctoral student in the Department of Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a recipient of the University Fellowship. She works at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum as an education assistant, and her research interests include museum pedagogy and the museum as a site of activism. Her research has been presented at Tufts University, the University of Sussex, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and other venues. She serves on UIC’s Art History Graduate Student Association and is an active member of the UIC Graduate Employees Organization. She received a BA from Oberlin College in 2009 and an MA from the Bard Graduate Center in 2011.

Sheila hoffman

Sheila K. Hoffman is a 14-year veteran curator and director of fine art museums in Oklahoma, Michigan and New York. She has studied in France, Québec, and the U.S, earning her Masters in Art History at the University of Oklahoma.  She has authored several books and articles, including an acclaimed examination of indigenous pottery of the Southwestern United States.  She is a doctoral candidate in Museology, Mediation, and Heritage at the University of Québec at Montréal. Sheila K. Hoffman est une ancienne conservatrice des beaux-arts aux États-Unis dans les états du Michigan, de l’Oklahoma et de New York. Elle est titulaire d’une maîtrise en histoire de l’art et doctorante en Muséologie, patrimoine et médiation à l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Elle est auteure de plus d’une trentaine d’expositions et de plusieurs essais sur l’art, l’iconologie, et le symbolisme.

Sarah Keim

Sarah Keim is a graduate student affiliated with the museum studies program at Western Illinois University-Quad Cities in Moline, Illinois. She holds a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2010). Pursuing a curatorial career, she looks to continue her studies by entering a doctoral program in 2014.

Sylwia Kucharska

Sylwia Kucharska is a PhD candidate in University of Social Science and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland. Her thesis focuses on the role of film-induced tourism in promotion of cultural heritage. Since 2002 she has been working as a freelance location manager for feature and documentary movies, mostly for foreign runaway productions in Poland.

Krista Lepik

Krista Lepik is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Journalism and Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences and Education, University of Tartu, and a librarian at the University of Tartu Library. Her thesis focuses on cultural participation issues in (Estonian) public knowledge institutions – here, the interest in museum communication and information literacy theories and practice should also be mentioned.

Szilvia Nagy

Szilvia Nagy is a curator and cultural anthropologist. After graduating from Cultural and Visual Anthropology (2003), she has studied anthropology and photography in London (Birkback University and London College of Communication). In 2008 she has co-founded the Miskolc Institute of Contemporary Art (M.ICA), where she was working as a curator and project manager for exhibitions, workshops, public art projects and public programs until 2012. Currently she is a PhD candidate at ELTE University's Doctoral Program in Film, Media and Contemporary Culture. Her research focuses on the transforming institutional background of the art field, especially the structural changes and their analysis by the means of network theories.

Stefania savva

Stefania is a PhD candidate in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester in the UK. Following on from her undergraduate studies in Primary Education in Greece, she completed an MA in Art, Craft and Design Education in London in 2009. Stefania worked in several primary schools in Cyprus as a generalist teacher, as an art teacher for two years and has done voluntary work in museums in Cyprus. She is currently working as a Research Assistant at the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology doing research on the use of ipads in undergraduate art and design education, undertaken and supervised by Dr Nicos Souleles. Her research interests include the interrelationships between multiliteracies pedagogy and learning in a museum context, digital humanities and ubiquitous learning, culturally responsive teaching and learning in and through the arts education.

Rosemary Gall Spooner

Rosie Spooner is an emerging researcher, writer and curator originally from Toronto, and currently based in Glasgow, Scotland.  She holds an MA in British colonial history from the University of Bristol and an undergraduate degree in modern history from the University of Glasgow, where she returned in January 2013 to undertake Ph.D. studies.  Funded by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council, Rosie’s doctoral project seeks to create a dialogue between the history of the British Empire and those public exhibitions that showcased the material culture of non-European peoples to British publics.  This object-based approach, which is focused on examining the movement of objects between periphery and metropole, will enable a reassessment of the history of the relationship between colonial locales.  Rosie also has a strong interest in the visual arts and has worked in contemporary art galleries both in the UK and in Canada.