2026 Research Grant Recipients

Congratulations to the 16 graduate students who received the 2026 Decorative Arts Trust Research Grants:

• Jessie Alperin, PhD student, University of Chicago, René Lalique’s jewelry as sculptural experience (The Marie Zimmermann Grant)
• Sarah Bochicchio, PhD candidate, Yale University, the use of art as a tool for power, self‑fashioning, and social agency among women in Early Modern England
• Julia Carabatsos, PhD student, Columbia University, Hawaiian quilts as creative reworkings of album‑quilt techniques that articulated Hawaiian identity amid U.S. annexation
• Angela Hermano Crenshaw, PhD candidate, Bard Graduate Center, piña textiles as mediators of Filipino‑American colonial relations
• Philippe Depairon, PhD student, Columbia University, netsuke as globalized Japanese decorative arts shaped by colonial trade networks
• Beril Sarısakal Erkent, PhD candidate, Columbia University, the modernization of Ottoman tile production at the Yıldız Factory in the early 20th century
• Adela Foo, PhD student, Yale University, Aq Quyunlu blue‑and‑white ceramics as craft‑driven expressions of imperial identity
• Alicia Gallant, PhD student, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), the use of technical education to reinforce social and racial hierarchies
• Elena Kanagy-Loux, PhD candidate, Bard Graduate Center, colonial lacemaking’s global circulation and the distinctive material and technical innovations developed by Malagasy makers
• Josephine Anna Koopman, PhD student, European University Institute, a study of snuffboxes and betel boxes as objects that illuminate Early Modern luxury, sociability, and colonial exchange
• Marie Ngiam, PhD student, University of Oslo, the (un)making of arboreal ecologies through an examination of Early Modern objects rendered from tree burls
• Kartika Puri, PhD student, Yale University, the use of 17th‑century state beds to stage animated effigies
• Edward Salazar, PhD candidate, University of California, Santa Cruz, Daisy Wende’s embroidered dresses and her collaboration with Bolivian artisans (The Decorative Arts Society of Orange County Grant)
• Maria Slautina, PhD student, Princeton University, 17th‑century chanoyu object assemblages as transcultural multimedia art
• Taylor Chisato Stewart, PhD student, The University of Chicago, the production of lacquer replicas and the formation of modern Japanese heritage thought
• Tamar van Riessen, PhD student, University of Exeter, how the Dutch artist Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten’s still lifes used global luxury objects to visualize 17th‑century trade and empire in England

The application deadline for Research Grants is April 30 annually. Emerging scholars are invited to explore more grants and scholarships from the Decorative Arts Trust.