Dr. Ellen Hurst earned her PhD at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research addresses cultural interaction in the early modern world, with a focus on the exchange between northern Italy and Muscovy in the sixteenth century. She has taught art history in the Midwest and on the East Coast, and currently works as a consulting writer, editor, and researcher for several major arts organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the US State Department’s Art in Embassies Program.