I am a University Lecturer of Art History and Museum Studies at the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Art in Society (LUCAS). I teach courses in Museum History and the Culture, Ethics and Politics of Collecting, and am co-editing a volume with Dr. Mary Bouquet on the 1930s emergence of museums of modern art in the Netherlands, to be published by Berghahn Press. I also work with the Netherlands Interuniversity Institute for Art History (NIKI) in Florence, where I teach a Master’s degree course in Museums of the Future: Ethics, Responsibilities and Practices. Before coming to Leiden, I was a curator at museums in the United States and then moved to Rome, where I taught at Temple University Rome for twelve years, with courses on museum history and theory and modernist art and politics. In Rome, I organized workshops and published essays on topics related to architecture, decoration and museums established under Fascism and Jewish women in 1930s Rome. As board member of ICME ICOM (the International Committee for Ethnographic Museums of the International Council of Museums), I coordinated cultural programming for the 2016 Milan Triennale and a panel on the State of Ethnographic Museums in Italy. I have consulted with the Special Superintendency for Archaeology in Rome, ICCROM, Belgian Academy in Rome, and collaborated with the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. Twice a Director’s Guest at Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbertide, I researched and wrote about private museums in 21st century Europe (published in the Leiden University MCS Annual Yearbook 2020) and the Villa Torlonia in Rome. For the past year, I have directed the Leiden University Museum Lab, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Culture, in which our team organizes enquiry-based museum learning projects for students and will host an international conference in January 2026 titled “Legacies: Why Museum Histories Matter.”
It is now a privilege and inspiration to be a Visiting Professor at the KNIR. This post is particularly exciting, as it follows a KNIR Museum Fellowship I was awarded in 2023 and offers an unparalleled opportunity to continue the exciting research, collaboration, and programming that I have already begun. This includes co-teaching the course Fascism and Anti-fascism in Rome: History, Legacy, and Cultural Memories in the KNIR-NIKI minor with Dr. Maria Bonaria Urban, KNIR Director of Studies in History. Additionally, it allows me a gift of time to pursue ongoing research and writing about the life and work of Italian and foreign Jewish artists, philanthropists and cultural leaders working in Rome between 1870, when the Jewish Ghetto was liberated, and 1938, when the Fascists established Racial Laws barring Jews from civic life. I will also continue the Roman Museum Legacies lecture series, which I began in 2024, consisting of dialogues with directors of consequential museums in Rome who are engaged in institutional self-reflection. It will be a special honor to begin my visiting professorship by leading a presentation and public dialogue with Dr. Olga Melasecchi, director the Jewish Museum in Rome, to take place on 9 April, as well as to participate in the lively and productive life of the KNIR.
