Graduate Fellows
The Block Museum currently offers two graduate research fellowships each year: an Art History Graduate Fellowship, selected from applicants studying within the Northwestern University Department of Art History and an Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship, studying anywhere within Northwestern.
About the Fellowship Program
The Block Museum’s Fellowship program offers opportunities for Northwestern University doctoral students from various academic programs and disciplines who are interested in exploring museum professions. There are many exciting opportunities in museums for PhDs, and museums benefit from working with professionals with diverse degrees, including history, performance studies, indigenous studies, African American Studies, and other fields. The fellowship provides hands-on experience within the context of a dynamic university museum and is geared toward students whose work engages with visual culture, history, museum practice, and the questions of shaping and exhibiting knowledge.
The Graduate Fellows bring diverse and global perspectives and the ability and desire to work beyond the student’s area of specialization to support the museum’s inclusive artistic program. The Program shares the Block’s collaborative ethos and commitment to diverse perspectives.
The positions are nine to twelve months, beginning with the academic year in September and concluding in June or August according to the graduate's schedule. Applications for the fellowships are generally due in winter or spring of the previous academic year. The Fellowship includes a stipend and tuition waiver equal to a teaching assistantship.
For general information, please contact Corinne Granof at c-granof@northwestern.edu.
Past Fellows
| Year | Fellow Name | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | Ruslana Lichtzier | Co-curated Dissident Sisters: Bev Grant and Feminist Activism, 1968–72 |
| 2023-24 | Madison Brown [Interdisciplinary Fellow] |
Curated A Little Truth: Fact and Fiction in Family Photography |
| 2022-23 | Ash Deosaran | Curated The Living Image of Sound: Notes on Jazz and Protest at Northwestern |
| 2022-23 | Felipe Gutierrez [Interdisciplinary Fellow] | Co-curated Rosalie Favell: Indigenous Artists Facing the Camera |
| 2021-22 | Sarah Dwider | In-house co-curator for Taking Shape: Abstractions from the Arab World, 1950s-1980s |
| 2021-22 | æryka hollis o’neil [Interdisciplinary Fellow] | Work with Block Cinema and Dario Robleto exhibition |
| 2020-21 | Bethany Hill | Research on A Site of Struggle, Creation of digital teaching model, Authored A Site of Struggle - Care Guide |
| 2020-21 | Rikki Byrd [Interdisciplinary Fellow] |
Curated Behold, Be Held, Creation of digital teaching model |
| 2019-20 | Cait DiMartino | Co-curator for For One and All: Selected Prints from The Block’s Collection (2021), Curated Regional Modernisms: Works from the Block’s Permanent Collection |
| 2019-20 |
Simran Bhalla |
Curated Block Cinema Series Morning Will Come: Modernity in Indian Cinema, Contributed to Modernisms |
| 2018-19 |
Evelyn Kreutzer |
In-house co-curator for Pop América, 1965–1975, Curated cinema program Migrating Berlin |
| 2018-19 | Sarah Estrela | Assisted with Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, education resource website and related undergrad class. |
| 2017-18 |
Beth Derderian |
Curator of Break a Rule: Ed Paschke's Art and Teaching |
| 2017-18 | Tamar Kharatishvili | Assisted with research of Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time. Assisted with Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded |
| 2016-17 | Talia Shabtay | Curator of Mining Pictures: Stories from Above and Below Ground |
| 2015-16 | C.C. McKee | Curator of Keep the Shadow, Ere the Substance Fade: Mourning during the AIDS Crisis |
| 2014-15 | Antawan Byrd | Contributed to Kader Attia: Reflecting Memory |
| 2013-14 | Jake Leveton | Curator of Ecological Looking: Sustainability & the End(s) of the Earth |
| 2012-13 | John Murphy | Curator of Blacklisted: William Gropper's Capriccios and The Left Front: Radical Art in the "Red Decade," 1929-1940 |
| 2011-12 | Ashley (Miller) Dunn | Contributed to Drawing the Future: Chicago Architecture on the International Stage, 1900-1925 |
| 2010-11 | Jason Roberts | Contributed to Block Cinema & the Film Criticism Conference, 2011 |
| 2010-11 | Bettina Hessler | Contributed to research on Lovis Corinth prints, William Hogarth prints, and works from the Bernard Friedman gift. |
| 2009-10 | Austin Parks | Contributed to research on the Pritchard Collection |
| 2008-09 | Elizabeth Benjamin | Curator of Selections from the Collection |
| 2007-08 | Edna Togba | Contributed to Design in the Age of Darwin: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright |
| 2006-07 | Margaret O’Neill | Contributed to Nonsense and Experimentation: Dada Film Shorts |
| 2005-06 | James Glisson | Contributed to The Anatomy of Gender: Arts of the Body in Early Modern Europe, Comic Art: The Paris Salon in Caricature, and Philipon’s La Caricature and the Street |
| 2004-05 | Alison Fisher | Contributed to Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature |
| 2003-04 | Justine DeYoung | Contributed to Honoré Daumier: Public and Private Domains and American Expressionism: Art and Social Change, 1920s–1950s |
| 2002-03 | Carman Niekrasz | Produced booklet on artist Max Beckmann |
| 2001-02 | Meghan Wilson | Contributed to The Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz |
| 2000-01 | Nina Rowe | Contributed to Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age |
| 1999-2000 | David Areford | Contributed to Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age |
| 1998-99 | Stephanie Smith | Contributed to research on Works Progress Administration prints and the Henry Simon collection |
| 1997-98 2000-01 |
Nina Rowe | Contributed to Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age |
| 1996-97 | Dabney Hailey | Contributed to William Hogarth and 18th-Century Print Culture |
| 1995-96 | Jane Friedman | |
| 1993-94 | Jodi Lox | Contributed to general collections and exhibitions |
| 1992-93 | Elizabeth Seaton | Contributed to Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Depression–Era Prints from the Collection of the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art |
