Alumni Award Recipient

In October of 2023, the department welcomed Ilenia Colón Mendoza back to Penn State as our Alumni Award recipient. Dr. Colón Mendoza, who completed her Ph.D. in 2008 under the supervision of Prof. Brian Curran, is professor of art history at the University of Central Florida, where she has taught since 2010. She is one of the foremost scholars of Spanish polychrome wood sculpture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her 2015 book, The Cristos Yacentes of Gregorio Fernández: Polychrome Sculptures of the Supine Christ in 17th-century Spain, was published by Ashgate in 2015 and was reissued in paperback by Routledge in 2020. She has also co-edited a volume on Spanish Royal Patronage 1412-1804: Portraits as Propaganda, along with numerous articles and book reviews. In addition, she has been a curatorial assistant on numerous exhibits, including ones at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid, Spain. A great teacher as well as an accomplished scholar, she received an Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching award from UCF. During her visit, Dr. Colón Mendoza gave an inspiring talk about her career path and current work, met with graduate and undergraduate student groups, and attended the College of Arts and Architecture Alumni Award ceremony. It was a privilege for the department to recognize her work and contributions to the field over the three days of her visit, and it was a joy to learn professional and lifelong lessons from her inspiring example.

Alumni Updates

Meghan MacWilliams Baratta, B.A. (1994)

Baratta is currently the supervisor of the project review section of the NJ Historic Preservation Office.

Jessica Boehman, UPenn Ph.D. (2009); Penn State M.A. (2002)

Dr. Jessica Boehman is a professor of fine arts and art history at LaGuardia Community College in New York, NY. There, she teaches a mix of art history, illustration history, and design history as well as all studio illustration courses at the college. Summers are spent teaching art history in Rome as part of CIEE's international program for high school and college students. This year, Jessica's second illustrated book for children, Café Au Lait: A Story of NF1 and My Special Spots, which she wrote and illustrated, was published by the Children's Tumor Foundation. Mixing two fields, she is reminded of the advice of her late advisor, Brian Curran, who counseled her not to forsake studio art entirely in favor of Art History. In doing so, she found her perfect happy "medium."

Theresa (Tess) Kutasz Christensen, Ph.D. (2018); M.A. (2010)

Christensen is currently employed at the Baltimore Museum of Art as a Provenance Researcher, identifying works in the Prints and Drawings collection with Nazi-Era provenance gaps. She spent the last two years as the full-time researcher producing the major international traveling exhibition, Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe 1400-1800. Christensen says the exhibition has been wonderfully well received, and it was a pleasure to show Penn State Art History graduate students through the show in October 2023. In addition to building the show, she co-edited the exhibition catalogue which features 26 essays by leading scholars. Making Her Mark is open at the Baltimore Museum of Art through January 7th, 2024 and will be on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto from March 27th through July 1 of 2024.

In addition to the Making Her Mark catalogue, Christensen’s article "Agents, Acquisitions, and Agency: Queen Christina of Sweden’s Development of Antiquarian Collections in Stockholm and Rome" will be published in December 2023 in the special issue "Early Modern Women and Agency" in the journal Parergon guest edited through Oxford University. She also has an extended book review essay on The Age of Undress: Art, Fashion, and the Classical Ideal in the 1790s coming out in the winter edition of the Women's Art Journal.

Link to the book: https://gooselane.com/products/making-her-mark

Denise Costanzo, Ph.D. (2009); M.A. (1999)

Denise Costanzo is an associate professor of architecture at Penn State, where she teaches theory, history, and research methods. Her recent publications include a co-edited book, Italian Imprints on Twentieth-Century Architecture (2022), and a chapter in the volume, Denise Scott Brown In Other Eyes: Portraits of an Architect (2022). Her most recent lectures were delivered at the University of Miami; Yale; the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio, Switzerland; and KU Leuven's Brussels campus in Belgium.

Theresa A. Cunningham, Ph.D. (2020)

In May 2023, Cunningham started a new job as assistant curator of European art and the Mellon Collections at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. She is currently working on an exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist drawings from the Mellon Collection that will open at VMFA in March 2024.

Adrienne Guillen Darrah, Ph.D. Communications (2023); M.P.A. (2018); M.B.A. (2012); B.A. (1998)

Darrah is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State.

Douglas N. Dow, Ph.D. (2006); M.A. (1997)

Dow has recently published his book, Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance (Amsterdam University Press, 2023)

Katherine Eastman (nee Marshall), B.A. (2013)

Eastman has been the archives manager for the Al Hirschfeld Foundation since her graduation from Penn State in 2013. In 2023, Eastman and her team have mounted four exhibitions entirely of Hirschfeld’s work (including two international shows). Last year, they published a new book, The American Theater as Seen by Hirschfeld Vol II: 1962-2002, and in January, they are republishing The American Theater as Seen by Hirschfeld Vol I: 1926-1961, originally published in 1961. She is also cohost of the Hirschfeld Century Podcast, where she and creative director, David Leopold, cover film, television, theatre, dance, and music, all told through Hirschfeld drawings. This is just a little bit of what Eastman and her team do at the AHF. She says she feels lucky to use her Penn State Art History degree every single day at work!

Brisa Marie Smith Flores, UCLA Ph.D. in Culture and Performance (2023); UPenn M.A. in Liberal Arts, certificate in Cultural Heritage Management (2018); Penn State Triple Major in Art History, History, and Global and International Studies (2016)

Brisa Smith Flores is a UC Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Irvine. She has also earned a Terra Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of African American Culture and History. She earned her Ph.D. in Culture and Performance at UCLA. Her research has earned funding from UCLA's Institute of American Cultures, the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, the Edward A. Dickson History of Art Fellowship, and honorable mentions from the Ford Foundation. She is a member of the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society and Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. Additionally, she has served as the co-editor-in-chief for UFAHAMU: Journal of African Studies, an important forum for the publication of materials addressing Africa and the African diaspora for 45 years. She has worked at notable institutions like the Dallas Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Getty Research Institute. In her free time, Brisa works to write and produce a YouTube channel (Brisa Marie - Future PhD) focused on demystifying the graduate school process. Her research interests center on Critical Theory, Afro-Latin racial politics, Afro-diasporic identities and visual cultures, and decolonization.

Adriana Guidi, Public Relations B.A., Art History Minor (2021)

Adriana Guidi was recently hired as assistant to chief of staff at Gagosian Gallery in New York City. She is open to speaking with students looking for a contact at the gallery.

Gillian Greenhill Hannum, Ph.D. (1986); M.A. (1981);

Hannum recently retired from full-time teaching and became professor emerita of art history at Manhattanville College in 2021. She is still teaching part-time during fall semesters. She has been doing a bit of writing and editing, completing two projects last year: “Keeping the Faith: Contemporary Women Artists and Religion,” Religion and the Arts, Vol. 27:1 and 2 (April 2023/double issue); co-guest editor with Kyunghee Pyun; and Enlarging the Parameters of Feminist Artivism, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023; co-editor and contributor with Kyunghee Pyun. One more project is ongoing, with publication expected in late 2024: Pedagogical Reckoning: Decolonizing, Degendering and Deconstructing the Western Art Historical Canon (Vernon Press, forthcoming in 2024; with Sooran Choi).

Kimberly Henrikson, B.A. (1998)

Henrikson is in her 7th year as executive director at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut. There, she recently established an annual artist member exchange residency with the city of Dresden, Germany, with the first artist exchange happening in spring 2024, as well as a separate exhibition exchange with the Litho Werkstatt Berlin for summer 2024. This October, Henrikson participated as a panelist on print collecting at the Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair held in New York City. This fall she was invited to serve as juror for two exhibitions, one in Connecticut and the other in New York for the Society of American Graphic Artists (SAGA). In July, Henrikson stepped down from the role of president for the Print Club of New York which she had held for the previous eight years. In April, she was interviewed for an episode of the Platemark podcast focused on prints and printmaking. Henrikson maintains a seat on the Advisory Board for the Norwalk Art Space as well as the National Advisory Council for the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State.

Hikmet Sidney (Dogu) Loe, Hunter College CUNY M.A. (1996); UC Berkeley MLIS (1986); Penn State B.A. (1980)

In 2023, Hikmet Sidney Loe was promoted to visiting assistant professor, art history at UNLV. Her award-winning book, The Spiral Jetty Encyclo: Exploring Robert Smithson’s Earthwork Through Time and Place (University of Utah Press, 2017), just went into its second printing.

Sara Detweiler Loughman, B.A. (1993)

After several years of exhibition production at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Williams College Museum of Art, and also project management for artist Jenny Holzer, Sara Detweiler Loughman recently made somewhat of a career change. As of a few years ago, she is an art specialist and project manager in the high-net-worth insurance industry, consulting for a small firm.

Melissa L. Mednicov, Ph.D. (2017); M.A. (2012)

Mednicov’s second book, Jewish American Identity and Erasure in Pop Art, will be published in March 2024 with Routledge.

Ilenia Colón Mendoza, Ph.D. (2008); M.A. (2002)

Mendoza is professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts and Design at the University of Central Florida. In November, she presented her current research on "Calderón, the Paragone, and his Theatrical Use of Sculpture" at the Golden Age Symposium held at the University College of Cork, Ireland. The book she co-edited with Lisandra Estevez, Polychrome Art in the Early Modern World: 1200-1800, is at press with Routledge. She was recently honored with the College of Arts and Architecture Alumni Award.

Robert Millard, Ph.D. (2017)

Millard’s article, "The Last Judgment of Savonarola," was recently published in SOURCE: NOTES IN THE HISTORY OF ART (Volume 41, Number 4, Summer 2022).

Emily L. Newman, M.A. (2006)

After receiving her Ph.D. at The Graduate Center, CUNY in February 2012, Emily L. Newman accepted a job at Texas A&M-Commerce and was recently promoted to full professor in the Department of Liberal Studies. She has edited four books and published two monographs. Her most recent, Fashioning Politics and Protests: New Visual Cultures of Feminism in the United States, was published by Palgrave Macmillan this past spring. She currently lives in McKinney, TX (the DFW metroplex) with her little terrier mix, Fred. www.EmilyLNewman.com

Casey Repasy, B.A. (2015)

Repasy graduated with her Master of Arts in Administration and Museum Leadership from Drexel University in June 2023 and is currently the manager of volunteers and interns at the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. She is also on the Advocacy Committee for National Emerging Museum Professionals, seeking to create a more equitable and transparent field. Repasy is happy to talk to a fellow Nittany Lion about museums!

Corey Osei M. Serrant, B.A. (2011)

In August 2023, Corey Serrant was named associate director for the LGBTQ+ department and specialist of the African American art department at Swann Auction Galleries. He works with consignors, institutions, and collectors throughout the auction process to develop the market. Previously, he was the administrator and cataloguer in the African American art department.

After completing his undergraduate degree, he interned for the National Academy of Design, 303 Gallery, and Jack Shainman Gallery. He has worked for Salon 94 and Eric Firestone Gallery, most recently as associate director, where he focused on gallery sales and liaising with artist estates. Corey has served as a juror for the M.F.A. Master’s thesis at the School of Visual Arts, New York. He has participated in lectures at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, the Appraisers Association of America, and the LGBT Historic Sites Project. He is enrolled in the art history graduate program at the City College CUNY, with a focus on African American art and art theory. His general interests include the art of the African diaspora, critical race theory, and postcolonialism.

Adam Veil, M.A. (2004); B.A. (2002)

Since 2021, Veil has held the position of vice president and senior specialist of American art and Pennsylvania Impressionism at Freeman's in Philadelphia. He has also directed the online art history program at Mansfield University (now a part of the newly integrated Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania) since 2012. Veil also volunteers as an alumni admissions interviewer for the Schreyer Honors College. He hopes all his Penn State Art History friends are doing well!

In Memoriam

Harriet M. O’Brien passed away on October 27, 2023 at the age of 101. She earned her B.A. in Art History at Penn State in 1981 at the age of 59 and was awarded the Golumbic Scholarship prize from the College of Arts and Architecture in 1980. Pursuing her passion for her studies in art history, she served as a docent at the Palmer Museum of Art for many years. Giving back was basic to her character. As a forever Penn Stater, she served on the Faculty Women's Executive Board and as a tour guide at the Hintz Family Alumni Center.