School of Art & Art History

USF College of Design, Art & Performance

Art History Alumni

We are proud of our students’ great professional success. What follows is a sample of some of our students’ achievements. We encourage our alumni to keep in touch with us and to send us updates.

Kessanda Abel (BA 2008) received an MA from Christie’s Education London and is Community Engagement Manager at the Tampa Museum of Art.

Anne H. Albritton (MA 1988) received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is Professor of Art History at the Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, FL.

Shannon Annis (MA 2008) is Curator of the Collection and Exhibitions Manager at USF’s Contemporary Art Museum.

Marlena Antonucci (MA 2016) is the Community Engagement Coordinator at the Rio Grande Farm Park in Alamosa, CO.

Andrea Johnson Brickey (MA 2016) is Education Coordinator at the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, FL.

Rebecca Dubay (BA 2000) received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr and is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Karen Fraser (MA 1996) received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is Associate Professor of Asian Art History at the University of San Francisco and author of Photography and Japan (London, 2011).

Jean Marie Carey (MA 2012) received her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Erin Carter (MA 2013) is Volunteer and Services Coordinator at the Albin Polasek Museum in Winter Park, FL.

Laura Colkitt (MA 2015) is a Ph.D. candidate in art history at the University of Florida.

Devon Larson Dargan (MA 2006) is Chief Registrar of Collections at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA.

Richard Ellis (MA 2019) is Adjunt Professor of Art History at the University of Tampa, FL.

(BA 2017) earned her master's degree in art history from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is currently Director of Education at the Spartanburg Art Museum in South Carolina.

Izabel Galliera (MA 2005) received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. She is Assistant Professor of Art History at McDaniel College, Westminster, PA, and author of Socially Engaged Art after Socialism: Art and Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe (London and New York, 2017).

Sabrina Hughes (MA 2010) is Curator and Historian of Photography and has been Curatorial Assistant at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL.

Gina Lane (MA 2021) is Historic Preservationist at the Bureau of History Preservation, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State.

Heather Linton (MA 2013) is Curatorial Assistant for Special Exhibitions and Publications at Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge MA.        

Jenna McCall (MA 2012) is Records Management Coordinator in the Admissions Department at the New College of Florida.

Chika Okeke-Agulu (MA 1999) received his Ph.D. from Emory University and is Professor of African Art History at Princeton University, Princeton NJ. His most recent books are Obiora Udechukwu: Line, Image, Text  (Milan, 2016) and Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria (Durham, NC, 2015).

Liza Oliver (MA 2006) received her Ph.D. in art history from Northwestern University. She is Diana Chapman Walsh Associate Professor of Art History at Wellesley College, Wellesley, and author of  .

Valerie Palazzolo (MA 2011) is pursuing her Ph.D. in art history at the University of Florida and is tenured Instructor of Art History and Humanities at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa.

Christy Paris (MA 2013) is full-time adjunct faculty at Tampa University and created the art club “The Collection,” on the USFSP campus. 

Amanda Poss (formerly Preuss) (MA 2015) is Director of Gallery 221 at Hillsborough Community College, Tampa.

Sheena Simmons (BA 2010) is Research Associate in Historic Preservation at the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, National Park Service, Natchitoches, LA.

Noel Smith (MA 1995) served as Deputy Director of the Contemporary Art Museum, USF and Curator of Latin American and Caribbean Art until 2021.

Michelle Sticht (BA 2011) received her master’s degree in Medieval Studies at the University of York in England.

Natalya Swanson (BA 2014) is a graduate Fellow at the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation.

(MA 2014) earned her Ph.D. from Boston University in 2023. She has recently accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor position at the University of Delaware. Ali is currently working on a monograph about Ottoman sultans’ portraits, which is based on her master’s thesis. The book is scheduled to be published by Brill Academic Publishers.

Traci Timmons (MA 1996) is Head Art Librarian at the Seattle Art Museum.

Phillip Townsend (BA 2014) is pursuing his Ph.D. in art history at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the Drs. Susan G. and Edmund W. Gordon Fellow in African American Art at The Blanton Museum of Art. He published reviews in African Arts italics (Spring 2017) and E3W Review of Books (Spring 2017).

Peter Tush (MA 2001) is Curator of Education at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, FL.

Megan Voeller (MA 2012) is Director of Humanities at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA.

Ashley Williams (MA 2017) is pursuing her Ph.D. in museum education at Florida State University. She is Lead Educator at the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa, FL.

Erin Wilson (MA 2016) previously Associate Curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL, is pursuing a doctorate in art history at Southern Methodist University.