Leadership

Dr. Beth Harris is co-founder and executive director of Smarthistory. Previously, she was dean of art and history at Khan Academy and director of digital learning at The Museum of Modern Art. Before joining MoMA, Beth was Associate Professor of art history and director of distance learning at the Fashion Institute of Technology where she taught both online and in the classroom. She has co-authored, with Dr. Steven Zucker, numerous articles on the future of education and the future of museums, and is the editor of Famine and Fashion: Needlewomen in the Nineteenth Century (2005). She received her Master’s degree from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, and her doctorate in Art History from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Dr. Steven Zucker is co-founder and executive director of Smarthistory. Previously, Steven was dean of art and history at Khan Academy. He was chair of history of art and design at Pratt Institute where he strengthened enrollment and lead renewal of curriculum across the Institute. Previously, he was dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY and chair of art history. He has taught at The School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, and at The Museum of Modern Art. Dr. Zucker is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has co-authored, with Dr. Beth Harris, numerous articles on the future of education and the future of museums. Dr. Zucker received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank is Dean of Content and Strategy. She is also the General Editor of Reframing Art History. As a strong advocate of public art history and digital art history pedagogy, she has been a long-time collaborator with Smarthistory as a content contributor, content editor, and board member. Lauren was previously associate professor of art history at Pepperdine University. Her MA and PhD are from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has taught at California State University, Long Beach, Brooklyn College (CUNY), the Graduate Century (also CUNY), the University of Oregon, and UCLA. She has served in a number of service and public outreach capacities, including as a board member of the Renaissance Conference of Southern California, a member of the Student and Emerging Professional Committee at CAA, and as a member of the selection committee for the Renaissance Society of America. She is currently a board member of the journal Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture. Her research primarily focuses on the visual culture of Spain and Latin America between 1400 and 1800, considering issues of colonialism, Indigenous agency, gender, censorship, globalization, and emotions. She has published a monograph, Holy Organ or Unholy Idol?: The Sacred Heart in Art, Religion, and Culture of New Spain (2018), and two edited volumes: Visualizing Sensuous and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Americas (2018) and Emotions, Art, and Christianity in the Transatlantic World, 1450–1800 (2021). Beyond books, she has published essays and reviews in journals, including The Americas, Colonial Latin American Review, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, caa.reviews, and others. She is also interested in pedagogy, digital art history, and the digital humanities, with recent publications in the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (“Doing Digital Art History in a Pre-Columbian Art Survey Class: Creating an Omeka Exhibition Around the Mixtec Codex Zouche-Nuttall,” 2018) and Digital Humanities Quarterly (“Decolonizing “The Digital” in the Classroom: Reflections on the Intersection of Colonial Latin American Art History and Digital Art History Pedagogy“).

Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Kristen Laciste received her MA and PhD in Visual Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and specializes in art and visual culture from West and Central Africa. In her scholarship, she examines African fashion practices and subcultures created or influenced by colonialism during the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly the fashion subculture, the Society of Ambiance Makers and Elegant Persons (La SAPE) in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition, she studies photography in Africa, from its introduction and utilization by Europeans to justify their colonial intervention, to its usage by African artists in the wake of independence to the present, and its circulation in American and European news media.

UX Strategist and Project Lead

Kayla McCarthy has her hands in just about every aspect of Smarthistory, focusing on user experience and operational strategy. At Indiana University, where she graduated with a B.A. in American Studies, she also had her hands in many areas, from pioneering a pop-up exhibit for the University’s bicentennial, to writing about the nostalgia of Stranger Things. It was also at Indiana University where her curiosity about digital tools and their potential to democratize knowledge was sparked, which built on a longer love of how to connect real people with big ideas in that humbling, expansive process of learning and exchange. In addition to Smarthistory, Kayla has worked with the Chicago History Museum’s Chicago 00 Project, where she had a dynamic role in realizing a virtual reality experience of the 1893 World’s Fair.

Content and Project Manager

Julia Campbell manages initiatives across Smarthistory related to the growth and sustainability of video and essay content. She produces videos for Smarthistory, and her contributions to projects such as Reframing Art History and Seeing America support the expansion of resources regarding underrepresented topics in art history. Julia graduated from Pepperdine University with a B.A. in art history and a minor in digital humanities. Her undergraduate thesis “Procession, Feast, and Ceremony: Asco’s Celebration of Subversion” explores the work of Asco, a Chicano artist group active in the 1970s and 1980s. Previously, Julia interned with the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum and was a member of the inaugural cohort of the AllPaper Seminar at the Benton Museum of Art.