Smithsonian American Art Museum Announces 2024 – 2025 Fellowship Appointments and Residencies

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has announced the appointment of 18 fellows for the 2024–2025 academic year. The museum’s program hosts fellows appointed by the Smithsonian’s Office of Academic Appointments and Internships and grants its own awards for scholars and students to pursue research at the museum, including graduate, predoctoral, postdoctoral and senior fellowships. 

“Among this year’s cohort, we are particularly excited to welcome the inaugural awardees of our Audrey Flack Short-Term Fellowship, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Fellowship and Betsy James Wyeth Fellowship in Native American Art,” said Lindsay Harris, head of the Research and Scholars Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “With these three new fellowship positions, SAAM is increasing opportunities for scholars whose research expands our conception of American art.”

The 2024–2025 appointees are:

• Olivia Armandroff, University of Southern California, “Volcanic Matter: Land Formation and Artistic Creation,” George Gurney Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum and predoctoral fellow, Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program 
• Megan Baker, University of Delaware, “Crayon Rebellion: The Material Politics of North American Pastels, 1758–1814,” predoctoral fellow, Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program       
• Isaiah Bertagnolli, University of Pittsburgh, “Disarming Landscapes: Antinuclear Arts Activism in the United States,” Douglass Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum   
• Charmaine Branch, Princeton University, “Black Feminist Practices of Care: Artist-Archivists Cultivating Community,” Joshua C. Taylor Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum   
• Michelle Donnelly, Yale University, “Spatialized Impressions: American Printmaking Outside the Workshop, 1935–1975,” Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum   
• Ashley E. Kim Duffey, University of Minnesota, “(Re)visioning Kinship: Photographies of U.S.–Korean Adoption since 1953,” William H. Truettner Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Big Ten Academic Alliance Fellow, Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program
• Julia Hamer-Light, University of Delaware, “Part of the Continuum: Arthur Amiotte’s Fiber Wall Hangings and Lakȟóta Ecological Pedagogy, 1962–1978,” predoctoral fellow in American craft, Smithsonian American Art Museum   
• Maeve M. Hogan, University of Wisconsin–Madison, “Between Utility and Art: Recovering Fiber-Based Craft Histories of the 1950s and 1960s,” predoctoral fellow in American craft, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Big Ten Academic Alliance Fellow, Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program
• Elizabeth Keto, Yale University, “Reconstruction’s Objects: Art in the United States South, 1861–1900,” Joe and Wanda Corn Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum   
• Jana La Brasca, University of Texas at Austin, “The Machine That Makes the World: Alice Aycock to Scale, 1968–1986,” Douglass Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum   
• Maria de Lourdes Mariño Fernández, Temple University, “Untangling Transnational Cuba: The Cuban/Cuban American/Latinx Knot,” Audrey Flack Short-Term Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum   
• Jeannette Martinez, University of New Mexico, “Visualities of Belonging: Creating ‘Terruño’ in Contemporary U.S. Central American Art (1990s–Now),” Terra Foundation for American Art Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum 
• Sarah Myers, Stony Brook University, “Rage, Dissent, Hysteria: Feminist Art Collectives and Sexual Politics in 1980s New York,” Patricia and Phillip Frost Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum  
• Emma Oslé, Rutgers University, “The Space In-Between: Latinx Art and the Maternal,” Terra Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Big Ten Academic Alliance Fellow, Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program
• Brandon O. Scott, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “The American Grove: A Nineteenth-Century Vegetal Aesthetic,” predoctoral fellow, Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program
• Rachel M. Tang, Harvard University, “Lessons in Repair: Contemporary Objects, Traditions of Making, and Histories of Black and Native Schooling,” Betsy James Wyeth Predoctoral Fellow in Native American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum 
• Margot Yale, University of Southern California, “From Red Feminism to the Blacklist: Labor Schools and the Work of Art, 1935–1957,” Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum   
• Joseph Mizhakiiyaasige Zordan, Harvard University, “Tangible Sorrows: Materiality and Mourning in Colonial New York, 1688–1764,” Terra Foundation Predoctoral Fellow in American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Since 1970, the museum has provided 790 scholars with financial aid, unparalleled research resources and a world-class network of colleagues. Former fellows now occupy positions in prominent academic and cultural institutions across North America, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Europe, Russia, the Middle East and South America.

Fellowship opportunities include the Will Barnet Foundation Fellowship for research on American modern art and its influences; the Joe and Wanda Corn Fellowship for scholarship that spans American art and American history; the Douglass Foundation Fellowship for predoctoral research;  the Audrey Flack Short-Term Fellowship; the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Fellowship for research on modern and contemporary art;  the Patricia and Phillip Frost Fellowship for American art and visual culture; the George Gurney Fellowship for the study of American sculpture; the alumni-supported Joshua C. Taylor Fellowship; the William H. Truettner Fellowship for up to six months of research on American art;  the Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship for the study of excellence in all aspects of American art; and the Betsy James Wyeth Fellowship in Native American Art.

Applications for fellowships in the 2025-2026 academic year will open in September and are due by Oct. 15. Information about how to apply is available on the museum’s website or via email.

The museum maintains six online art-research databases with more than a half-million records, including the Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture that documents more than 400,000 artworks in public and private collections worldwide and extensive photographic collections documenting American art and artists. An estimated 180,000-volume library specializing in American art, history and biography is shared with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. An active publications program of books, catalogs and the critically acclaimed peer-reviewed journal for new scholarship “American Art” complements the museum’s exhibitions and educational programs.