EMERGING SCHOLARS LECTURES

2025 

• Washington Winter Show
  • Tessa Payer, Assistant Curator of Textiles & Historic Dress, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
  • Philippe Halbert, PhD, Richard Koopman Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
• Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • Luster, Shimmer, and Polish: Transpacific Materialities in the Arts of Colonial Latin America
    Juliana Fagua Arias, PhD Candidate, Cornell University
  • Crafting Appalachia: Examining Berea College’s History and Traditions of Making
    Matthew Monk, PhD Candidate, University of Delaware
  • (Re)Discovering the Ashley Family Embroideries and the Historic Interiors of the Colonel John Ashley House
    Olivia R. Scott, Peggy N. Gerry Curatorial Fellow, The Trustees of Reservations
  • Amalia van Solms-Braunfels: Princess of Pearls and Porcelain
    Lauryn Smith, PhD, Assistant Curator, The Frick Pittsburgh
  • Upending Upholstery: Window Seats from the Workshop of Duncan Phyfe
    Emily Whitted, PhD Candidate, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures
  • Laini Farrare, Mary Church Terrell Fellow, PhD Student, American Civilization, History Department, University of Delaware
  • Ella Nowicki, Master’s Student, Art History, University of Arkansas
  • Allison Robinson, Associate Curator of History Exhibitions, New-York Historical Society
• John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture
  • Brandywine Valley Spring Symposium: Looms for Technical Education at the Philadelphia Textile School, 1880–1910, Anastatia Spicer, Louis F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • San Francisco Fall Symposium: A Palace of Art and Memory: Founding Gifts for the Legion of Honor, Dr. Isabella Lores-Chavez, Associate Curator of European Paintings, Legion of Honor
• Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture
  • San Francisco Fall Symposium: Material Engineering: From Liebes to the Tech Textiles of Silicon Valley, Sarah Mills, Assistant Professor of Art History, San José State University
• American Ceramics Circle Symposium, Emerging Scholar Lecture
  • Fosca Maddaloni, PhD candidate, Brown University
• Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Wallpaper Conference
  • Armandine Malbois, PhD candidate, École du Louvre
• Delaware Antiques Show, Young Scholar Lectures
  • Eleanor Shippen, MA student, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • Ashley Vernon, MA student, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware

2024

• Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • Follow the Hearth: Retracing the Spatial History of Edgewater’s Dining Room Mantelpiece, Lauren Drapala, PhD candidate, Bard Graduate Center, and William L. Thompson Collections Fellow, Classical American Homes Preservation Trust
  • An Artifact of Afro-America: A Blanket Chest by Brooks Thompson, Neil Grasty, Undergraduate Student, Morehouse College, and Curatorial Intern, High Museum of Art
  • Loud and Clear: Glass and Obscured Narratives at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Laura Ochoa Rincon, Decorative Arts Trust Curatorial Fellow, New Orleans Museum of Art
  • Does Architecture move? The Mahadol Palanquin of 18th-century Gujarat and Marwar, Krishna Shekhawat, PhD Student, University of California, Berkeley
  • “Dressing Up” Egypt: Performing Race and Late 19th-Century Egyptomania, Lea Stephenson, PhD Candidate, University of Delaware
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
  • A Note-Worthy Perspective: The Role of Young Women in Music Education, Ahmauri Williams-Alford, Assistant Curator of Historical Interpretation, Telfair Museum
  • Saline to Georgia : The Salzburger Experience in a Salt-glazed Ceramic, Henry Beard, Historic Trades Interpreter, Old Salem Museum and Gardens
  • Crossing the Atlantic: A Charleston Silver Dish Cross from the shop of Charles Wittich, Cecelia Eure, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware
• John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Nashville Spring Symposium: “Trust much in the patronage of a liberal and enlightened community”: Portraits of Early Tennessee, Annabeth Dooley, independent scholar
  • Charleston Fall Symposium: Unearthing the Old City: Archaeology of the 17th Century at the Heyward-Washington House and Beyond, Sarah Platt, PhD, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, College of Charleston
• Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Charleston Fall Symposium: Beyond the Ashes: The Renewed Vision of the Charleston Renaissance, Chad Stewart, Curator of History, The Charleston Museum

2023

• Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • Little Gems: Studio Craft at Cranbrook’s Frank Lloyd Wright Smith House, Nina Blomfield, Decorative Arts Trust Marie Zimmermann Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
  • Reinterpreting an American Chair: Clara Porset and Josef Albers’ Butaca, Christina De León, PhD Candidate, Bard Graduate Center, and Associate Curator, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  • Struck Visitors from Afar: Chinese Metals and English Restoration Silver in the “Chinese Taste,” Susan Eberhard, PhD Candidate, University of California, Berkeley
  • Luxury Scissors in the Early Modern World, Claire E. Sabitt, PhD Candidate, Princeton University
  • Genealogical Threads: Unraveling the History of the Hooker-Pierpont-Russell-Talcott Family Apron, Olivia R. Scott, MA Student, Parsons School of Design
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
  • Rediscovering the Formula: Interpreting a Stenciled Pelerine in the Winterthur Collection, Katrina Reynolds, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur
  • Made for Use: Examining the Pottery of C.A. Haun, Riley K. Richards, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Wintherthur
  • Proud to Catch Cold at a Venetian Door: Andrea Palladio’s Villas and the Design of Drayton Hall, Patricia A. Smith, Director of Preservation, Drayton Hall Preservation Trust
• John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Philadelphia Spring Symposium: “Forming together the most brilliant assemblage of gay objects”: The Material Landscape of Philadelphia’s 1778 Meschianza, Kaila Temple, Curatorial Assistant, Stenton Museum
  • Rhode Island Fall Symposium: Indigenous Art: Past, Present, and Future at the RISD Museum, Sháńdíín Brown, Henry Luce Curatorial Fellow for Native American Art, RISD Museum
• Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Philadelphia Spring Symposium: “Less is a Bore”: Learning from Robert Venturi’s Philadelphia, Alisa Chiles, Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art

2022

• Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • The Tie that Binds: Stitching Together Communities in a Baltimore Album Quilt, Elizabeth Fox, Henry Luce Curatorial Assistant, Worcester Art Museum
  • “The Possibilities of a Box”: Louise Brigham’s Box Furniture and the Making of Democratic Craft and Design, Jena Gilbert-Merrill, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • The Portrait Returned: Art, Enslavement, and Optical Instruments in the Chesapeake, 1750-1800, Michael Hartman, the Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art, Hood Museum, Dartmouth College
  • An Incessant and Engrossing Pursuit: Nancy Vincent McClelland, Wallpaper, and Historic Decoration, Margaret Wood, PhD Candidate in Decorative Arts and Design History, George Washington University
  • Freedom of Brush and Spirit: Late-Ming Trade Ceramics and Their Creative Momoyama-Edo Japanese Consumers, Xiaoyi Diana Yang, PhD Candidate, Bard Graduate Center
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
  • Four Drawers, Four Stories: A Study of a Formerly Baltimore “Cabinet,” Kelly Fu, Lois McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • “To brighten every painful hours”: The Follet Family Sampler, Alexandra Macdonald, PhD Candidate, History, William & Mary
  • Made in Germantown: Analysis of an Early American Frame-Knitting Industry, Emily Whitted, PhD Candidate, History, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Spring symposium: Craftsman in the Bluegrass: Milton Paul and the Black Cabinetmakers of Lexington’s Colonial Revival, Erica Lome, Assistant Curator, Historic New England
  • Fall symposium: From Northern Imports to Local Manufacture: Clockmaking in Richmond, Rachel Asbury Cole, Collections Project Manager/Registrar, The Valentine Museum
• Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Fall symposium: George’s Grimace: Political Frustrations on a Virginia Stoneware Jar, Elyse Gerstenecker, Curator of Historical Collections, The Telfair Museum
• Drexel University Undergraduate Symposium in Material Culture Studies:
  • Riley Klug, West Virginia University
  • Alice (Siyuan) Zhao, University of Pennsylvania
  • Evan Sykes, Drexel University
  • Jamie Clifford, Drexel University
  • Liam O’Brien, Drexel University
  • Aidan B. Oddløkken, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
  • Avery A. Miller, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
• Winterthur Museum, The Wonder of Wood: Decorative Inlay and Marquetry in Europe and America, 1600–1900:
  • Alexandra Cade, PhD student, American Civilization, University of Delaware
• Delaware Antiques Show, Young Scholar Lectures:
  • Rediscovering the Formula: Interpreting a Stenciled Pelerine in the Winterthur Collection, Katrina Reynolds, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • A Long Space Race: Contextualizing Early (Human) Flight in 18th-Century Material Culture, Ethan Snyder, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware

2021

• Emerging Scholars Colloquium with the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust:
  • Elite Northern Horse Culture in South Carolina, Mary Fesak, PhD Candidate in American Civilization, University of Delaware
  • Musical Chairs: Seating Furniture for Performance, 1800-1875, Alexandra Cade, Senior Curator and Director of Woodwind Studies, Sigal Music Museum
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
  • Re-envisioning a Colonial Mexican Dressing Case in the Global Context, Rachel Asbury Cole, Collections Technician, The Valentine Museum
  • Cesar Chelor: The Products of His Hands, Enslaved and Free, Scott Merrifield, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Intern, Colonial Williamsburg
  • Keep Within Compass: Geography and Feminine Virtue in American Schoolgirl Art, Emily Wells, PhD candidate in History, William & Mary
• Preservation Society of Newport County Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • Catherine Doucette, Sebastien Dutton, and MaryKate Smolenski, Research Fellows, Preservation Society of Newport County
• John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Virtual dialogues: Carlene Bermann, Master’s Candidate, Cooperstown Museum Studies Graduate Program; Sarah Grandin, PhD, Clark-Getty Paper Project Curatorial Fellow, Clark Art Institute; Xiaoyi Diana Yang, PhD Candidate and Teaching Fellow, Bard Graduate Center
  • Fall symposium: “Out on the Waters!” Image and Meaning in an Indian Princess Ship Figurehead, Sybil F. Johnson, PhD Candidate, Boston University
• Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Fall symposium: “Turn to Nature”: Joseph Everett Chandler’s Colonial Revival Transformation of Stevens-Coolidge House, Katharine F. Grant, Curatorial Fellow, The Trustees of Reservations
• The Historic New Orleans Collection Antiques Forum Lecture:
  • Hannah Boettcher, Manager of Special Programs, Museum of the American Revolution
• Delaware Antiques Show Lecture, Young Scholars Lectures:
  • “The possibilities of a box”: Louise Brigham’s Box Furniture, Jena Gilbert-Merrill, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Museum
  • Threads of Change: Assessing a Potential Meiji-Era Silk-work Painting, Rachael Kane, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Museum

2020

• Emerging Scholars Colloquium in New York:
  • Edgefield Stoneware in The Met’s American Wing, Katherine C. Hughes, Peggy N. Gerry Research Scholar, The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Textiles and Design Exchanges between India and the United States in the Mid-Twentieth Century, Vishal Khandelwal, Department of the History of Art, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • The Eameses and The Case Study House Program: Introducing Scandinavian Design to Mid-Century America, Rachel Pool, History of Design and Curatorial Studies, Parsons School of Design and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  • A Tale of Two Families: An Engraved Tea Service in Antebellum Augusta, Georgia, Kayli Rideout, American Studies, Boston University
  • Transpacific Scopic Frames: the Folded Spaces of Two 18th-Century Pueblan Cabinets, Celia Rodríguez Tejuca, Art History, Johns Hopkins University
• Preservation Society of Newport County Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • Discriminate Doorknobs: An Inventory of Door Hardware at The Breakers and the Delineation of Spaces using Decorative Details, Sébastien Dutton, 2020 PSNC Research Fellow; 2019 M.A., Design Studies & Historic Preservation, Boston Architectural College
  • Edgefield Stoneware in The Met’s American Wing, Kate Hughes, 2018-2020 Peggy N. Gerry Research Scholar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; 2014 M.A., Sotheby’s Institute of Art – New York
  • The Ornate Staircase Railing at Marble House: A Unique and Exceptional Reflection of Versailles in Newport, Mathilde Tollet, 2020 PSNC Research Fellow; 2018 M.A., Museology & Conservation, l’Ecole du Louvre, Paris, & Complutense University, Madrid
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
  • Keeping it Close to Home: Fulling “Country Cloth” in the Early Republic, Eliza West, Independent Scholar, Richmond, Vermont
  • John Bull, Esquire: Reconsidering the Origins of a Southern Face Vessel, Sarah Bryan, Executive Director, North Carolina Folklife Institute, Durham, North Carolina
  • “Keeping it in the Family”: The Furniture of Daniel Clay, 1795-1829, Daniel Sousa, Assistant Curator, Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, Massachusetts

2019

• Emerging Scholars Colloquium in New York:
  • Unified Design: Midcentury Modernism at Winterthur Carrie Grief, MA candidate, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • The Liberating Stich: The Politics of Sympathy in White Women’s Abolitionist Needlework Mariah Gruner, PhD candidate, American Studies, Boston University
  • Between Fantasy and Familiarity: Chinese Tea Culture and Painting Traditions Tammy Hong, Andrew W. Mellon Research Assistant in Modern Materials, National Gallery of Art
  • Governor John Wentworth and the Vice-Regal Interior in British North America Steven McNeil, PhD candidate, Art History, Queen’s University
  • New Insights into Maryland’s Imported Furniture, 1780-1830 Elisabeth Mallin, Decorative Arts Trust Associate Curator, Maryland Historical Society
• John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Spring Symposium in Annapolis: Seized Possessions: Reconstructing Maryland’s First Governor’s Mansion Michelle Fitzgerald, Assistant Curator, Homewood Museum, John Hopkins University
  • Fall Symposium in the Berkshires: “Glass That Decorates”: The History, Designers, and Stained Glass of the Church Glass and Decorating Company of New York Amber Wingerson, Curatorial Assistant, Cape Ann Museum
• Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Fall Symposium in the Berkshires: Modern in the Mountains: Mid-Century Design in the Berkshires Rebecca Midgal, Independent Museum Consultant
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
  • “Her Fingers O’er this Canvas Move:” Unraveling the Threads of Race, Class, and Female Education in Antebellum Charleston Alexandra Cade, Executive Director, Carolina Music Museum
  • MESDA’s Edgefield Bowl: The Black and White Landscape of the B.F. Landrum Pottery Site Katherine C. Hughes, The Peggy N. Gerry Curatorial Intern, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • The Emancipation of Quash: Reconstructing the Charles Pinckney Mansion through the Silk of Master Carpenter John “Quash” Williams Tiffany Wade Momon, PhD candidate, Public History, Middle Tennessee State University
• Preservation Society of Newport County Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • Private Collection, Public Museum: Interpreting a Collector’s House Taylor Bye, MA Public History, University of Missouri-Kansas City
  • Stitching Politics: Antislavery Needlework in the Antebellum United States Mariah Gruner, PhD candidate, American Studies, Boston University
  • A Picturesque Paradise: Kingstone and Early 19th-Century Landscape Design  Jenn Robinson, MSc Architectural Conservation, University of Edinburgh
  • Venture Cargo: 18th-Century Newport Furniture Exports to the West Indies Emilio Ruiz, Former Curator of National Museum of Decorative Arts, Cuba
  • “Direct from England”: Peter Morton of Hartford, CT, and the English Ceramic Trade Dan Sousa, Assistant Curator, Historic Deerfield
  • “To Gratify the Eye with Color”: Newport Leaded Glass and the Aesthetic Movement Lea Stephenson, PhD candidate Art History, University of Delaware
• Wilton Colonial Revival Revisited Symposium, Young Scholar Lecture:
  • Reproductions and the Southern Colonial Revival Erica Lome, PhD candidate, American Civilization, University of Delaware
• Delaware Antiques Show Lecture, Young Scholars Lectures:
  • Midcentury Modernism at Winterthur Carrie Grief, Tiffany & Co. Foundation Curatorial Intern, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Reuniting the Unfinished: The 1857 Harrison Album Quilt Emily Whitted, MA candidate, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
• New Orleans Antiques Forum, Young Scholar Lecture:
  • Praising Canes: American Folk Art Walking Sticks Lea Lane, Curatorial Assistant, Cincinnati Art Museum

2018

• Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • Dinnerware for the Masses: Viktor Schreckengost’s Dinnerware Designs from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s
    Catherine Acosta, History of Design and Curatorial Studies, Parsons School of Design
  • Making Sense of Carmontelle’s Chairs
    Margot Bernstein, Art History, Columbia University
  • The Shop of Robert Stewart: Work and Wealth in the Antebellum Natchez Furniture Trade
    Candice Candeto, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • William Roberts’s “Excursion over the Mountains”: Landscapes “by the Pencil of a Virginian”
    Katie McKinney, Assistant Curator of Maps and Prints, Colonial Williamsburg
  • History in Stoneware: Depictions of the British Slave Trade on an 18th-Century English Punch Bowl
    Daniel Sousa, Peggy N. Gerry-Anne K. Groves Curatorial Intern, Historic Deerfield
• John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • New Orleans: Creole Comforts and French Connections: The Material World of François Petit de Coulange, 1732-1812
    Philippe L.B. Halbert, PhD Candidate, Department of the History of Art, Yale University
• Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Albany: Woven Together: Women, Weavers, and Jacquard Coverlets in New York State
    Britney Schline Yatrakis, Independent Historian, Troy, New York
  • New Orleans: “A Lover of the Beautiful:” Harriet Joor, Newcomb Pottery, and the Arts & Crafts Movement
    Maggie Dimock, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, Alva de Mars Megan Chapel Art Center, Saint Anselm College
• Colonial Williamsburg, Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
  • “To Please the most Tasty”: Thomas B. Campbell and Silver for the Great Wagon Road
    Emily Campbell, Architectural Preservation Assistant, Colonial Williamsburg
  • Unpacking Jacob Frymire’s Portrait of Amelia Lauck
    Annabeth Hayes, Director of Preservation, Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County
  • Big Wheel Keep on Turning: The Measure of Life through Johann Ludwig Eberhardt’s Odometer
    Lea Lane, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Decorative Arts and Design, Cincinnati Art Museum
  • Southern Collecting in the Post-Civil War Era: A Case Study of Barbara Fritchie’s Desk and Bookcase
    Trent Rhodes, MA, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
• Philadelphia Antiques & Art Show:
  • Buying and Selling Philadelphia: The Story of the Legendary 1929 Reifsnyder Sale
    Emelie Gevalt, PhD, Art History, University of Delaware
• Delaware Antiques Show Lecture, Young Scholars Lectures:
  • Truths of the Trade: Collecting, Researching, and Exhibiting an Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World Cabinet
    R.J. Lara, Alexandra Rosenberg, Winterthur Program Lecture in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • “The Very Quintessence of Fashion”: George Wyon, Composition Ornament, and Design Books at Winterthur
    Elizabeth Humphrey, Winterthur Program Lecture in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
• New Orleans Antiques Forum Young Scholar Lecture:
  • Making Clothing Work: Garments for Life in the Deep South, 1750-1865
    Tyler Putnam, General Education Manager, Museum of the American Revolution

2017

• Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
  • “Conformable to that of the water”: Cultural Confluence in the Decorative Arts of Early Kentucky
    Daniel Ackerman, Department of Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Revisiting Taunton: Making and Collecting the Chests of Robert Crosman
    Emilie Gevalt, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • Inspiring Interiors: England in the Time of Casanova
    Courtney Harris, Cultural Research Fellow, Art of Europe, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • High Style in the Lower Chesapeake: The Cabinetmakers of Edenton, 1745-1785
    Joseph Litts, Department of History, Clemson University
  • The Authority of Handicraft in the Age of Synthetics: Modern Weaving in the United States, 1930s-1950s
    Sarah Mills, Department of Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
• John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Savannah: Following the Ten Commandments: The Tablet Samplers of Mary Smallwood and Sarah Jones
    Jenny Garwood, Curatorial Associate, The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts
    
  • Hartford: Thistles & Crowns: The Painted Chests of the Connecticut Shore
    Benjamin W. Colman, Associate Curator, Detroit Institute of Arts
• Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Hartford Symposium: A Story of Sunshine and Shadow: Elizabeth H. Colt and the Crafting of the Colt Legacy in Hartford
    Willie Granston, Ph.D. student, History of Art & Architecture, Boston University
• Colonial Williamsburg, Antiques Forum, Young Scholars Lectures:
  • More than Just a Pretty Face: Reconsidering John Hesselius
    Janine Yorimoto Boldt, PhD, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA
  • Dr. Who? Apothe-What? The Birth of the Modern Pharmacy through the Lens of an 18th-Century Apothecary Chest
    Torren Gatson, PhD, Middle Tennessee University, Mufreesboro, TN
  • A Vessel of Memory: Thomas Chandler’s Eastern Shore Landscape
    Katherine Carson Hughes, Historic Charleston Foundation, Curatorial Research Assistant, Charleston, SC
  • Unpacking the Past: The Clothespress of Maria Carter Beverley
    Alexander Wilson, Ashley Whittaker Design, Design Assistant, New York, NY

2016 

• Fall 2016 Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • ‘Wel Don’ Chests and Pine Boxes: The Material Culture of Shenandoah County, 1800-1850
    Sarah Thomas, PhD Candidate, Department of History, College of William & Mary
• Spring 2016 Zimmermann Emerging Scholars Lectures:
  Presentations by recent MESDA Summer Institute alumnae
  • Family Matters: The Rope and Tassel Inlay School
    Amber Clawson, Director, Historical Association of Catawba County
  • Sacred or Secular: The Life of a Mahogany Stretcher Table in Charleston
    April Strader-Bullin, Director of Museum Programs, MESDA
  • “Inferior to None in the Western Country”: Early Stoneware Pottery Traditions in Maysville, Kentucky
    Brenda Hornsby Heindl, Ceramics Department Head, Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates
• Spring 2016 Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Much of Artistic Merit Still to Discover: MESDA’s Next Fifty Years
    Daniel Ackermann, Associate Curator, MESDA
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Decorative Arts Trust Young Scholars Lectures:
  • From Dining Room to Auction Block: The Mysteries of Governor Al(l)ston’s Sideboard
    Laura Conte, Visitor Services Coordinator, O. Winston Link Museum
  • “Don’t Cry for Me, America”: A Charleston Silk on Silk Embroidery with Watercolor
    Mark Farnsworth, Director, Historic Bethania
  • The Smiths: A Case Study of Family Portraiture in the Early Republic
    Katie McKinney, Sotheby’s Auctions, Department of American Furniture, Decorative Arts, and Folk Art

2015

• Fall 2015 Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Parlor Games: Decorative Arts and the McLellan House, 1801-2015
    Diana Jocelyn Greenwold, Curatorial Fellow, Portland Museum of Art
• Fall 2015 Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Tiffany Ecclesiastical Works in the Summer Churches of Maine
    Josh Probert, Independent Historical Consultant, Salt Lake City, UT
• Spring 2015 Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • The Noble Splendor of the Armeria de Dos Aquas: A Spanish Renaissance Armory at the Art Institute of Chicago
    Jonathan Tavares, Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Foundation Curatorial Fellow, Medieval to Modern European Painting & Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago
• Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Decorative Arts Trust Young Scholars Lectures:
  • Smoothing the Transition: The Life and Planes of William Little
    Nathan Jones, Masters Candidate, History, Texas State University
  • “That Penetrating and sidelong Gaze”: Revealing Identity and Place in Alexander Bradford’s Portrait of James Batterton
    Catherine Carlisle, Assistant Cataloguer, Charlton Hall Auctions
  • Fit for a President: The Material World of William Dallam
    Grant Quertermous, Assistant Curator, James Madison’s Montpelier