Wu Tung Curator of Chinese Art Nancy Berliner received her AB from Harvard College, her PhD from Harvard University’s Department of the History of Art and Architecture, and a certificate of matriculation from the Central Academy of Art in Beijing. She is currently working on an exhibition and catalogue on the “eight brokens.”
Nonie Gadsden, Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, studied at Yale University and the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture. Prior to her arrival at the MFA in 2004, she worked at the Chipstone Foundation and the Milwaukee Art Museum. She serves on the boards of the Nichols House Museum in Beacon Hill, the Decorative Arts Trust, and the American Furniture Journal.
Susanne Gänsicke is conservator of objects at the MFA, where she has worked since 1990. She holds a certificate in Archaeological Conservation from the Romisch-Germanisches Zentral museum, Mainz, Germany. She also worked as site conservator in Egypt and Sudan and served as chair of the Publications Committee of the American Institute for Conservation from 2005 to 2010. Her research interests include examination and treatment of Egyptian and Nubian material culture, study of ancient metalwork, and issues of site preservation.
Christraud M. Geary, Teel Senior Curator of African and Oceanic Art, joined the MFA ten years ago when she came to Boston from the Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Frankfurt University, Germany, and has conducted research in several African countries. Geary has curated exhibitions, most recently “Global Patterns: Dress and Textiles in Africa” (2011), is the author and editor of books and exhibition catalogues, and has published many articles on the arts of Africa.
Lane Curator of Photographs Karen Haas has been responsible for the largest collection of photographs by American modernists, including Charles Sheeler, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams, in private hands. The Lane Collection numbers more than 6,000 prints and ranges across the entire history of western photography from William Henry Fox Talbot to the Starn twins. Before coming to the MFA, Haas held curatorial positions at several Boston-area institutions, including the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Boston University Art Gallery, and the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover.
Gordon Hanlon, head of Furniture and Frame Conservation, joined the Museum in January 2000 after 11 years at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. After receiving his BA in Biology from the University of York, he studied furniture making at the London College of Furniture followed by four years training in the conservation of furniture and gilded surfaces at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Frederick Ilchman, Mrs. Russell W. Baker Curator of Paintings, Art of Europe, is responsible for the Museum’s collection of Italian paintings. He was the lead curator for the exhibition “Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice,” presented in 2009 at the MFA and the Musee du Louvre. That year he began working with Stephanie Stepanek to prepare the major exhibition, “Goya: Order and Disorder,” opening at the MFA in October 2014.
Yvonne J. Markowitz, Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator of Jewelry, oversees the Museum’s exceptional collection of nearly 13,000 ornaments. She is a past editor of the Journal of the American Society of JewelryHistorians; an editor of Adornment, the Magazine of Jewelryand Related Arts; co-director of the annual Adornment conference (ASJRA); and the author of numerous jewelry related books and articles. Her most recent book is ArtfulAdornments: Jewelry from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Meghan Melvin, Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Curator of Design, was a 19th- and 20th-century decorative arts and design specialist at Christie’s King Street, London, prior to joining the Art of Europe department in 2003. In 2011 Melvin transferred to the Prints, Drawings, and Photographs department. She is currently preparing an exhibition highlighting the MFA’s collection of design drawings scheduled to open in Spring 2014.
Jen Mergel is the Robert L. Beal, Enid L. Beal and Bruce A. Beal Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. Since joining the Museum in 2010, she has organized the exhibitions “Kristin Baker: New Paintings” (2010), “Jedediah Caesar: Soft Structures” (2011), and will present an exhibition of new works by Ridley Howard in May 2013. Prior to joining the MFA, she was associate curator at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), where she organized a number of exhibitions, including “Tara Donovan,” the artist’s first museum survey.
Thomas Michie, Russell B. and Andree Beauchamp Stearns Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Art of Europe, joined the MFA staff in 2009. Previously he was curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. A graduate of Williams College, he holds an MPhil in History of Art from Yale University. He is past president of the Decorative Arts Society and currently serves on the board of the American Ceramic Circle.
Liz Munsell is assistant curator of Contemporary Art and MFA Programs. Since joining the Museum in 2009 as a curatorial research associate, she has pioneered a number of new programs in video art and performance. She curated “Maude Morgan Prize 2011: Wendy Jacob” and “Slippery Surfaces,” a recent Krupp Gallery installation, which examines how artists draw our attention to an image’s structure.
Karen E. Quinn is the Kristin and Roger Servison Curator of Paintings, Art of the Americas. She received her bachelors degree at McGill University and her masters degree at the University of Pennsylvania, writing on the wood engravings of Winslow Homer for her thesis. Since joining the MFA in 1987, she has contributed to the exhibitions and catalogues for “Weston’s Westons: Portraits and Nudes” (1989), “The Lure of Italy” (1992), and “John Singleton Copley in America” (1995). She is also an adjunct professor at Middlesex Community College.
Phoebe C. Segal, Mary Bryce Comstock Assistant Curator of Greek and Roman Art, received her PhD in Art History from Columbia University in 2007. She came to work at the MFA in 2008 as curatorial research associate for “Aphrodite and the Gods of Love” and has held her current position since March 2011. She excavated at the Etruscan settlement of Poggio Civitate (Murlo) in 1997 and 1998.
Fred Sharf and his wife Jean are Millennial Benefactors of the MFA. A philanthropist, author, curator, and historian with a passion for designers’ archives, Fred’s wide-ranging collecting interests include 19th- and 20th-century architecture, automotive and aviation design, military history, and fashion illustration.
Over a career spanning 35 years, Stephanie Loeb Stepanek has served in many capacities in the departmentof Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, though she isbest known as a specialist on Goya prints and drawings. She worked on two major Goya exhibitions, “The Changing Image: Prints by Francisco Goya” (1974) and “Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment” (1989). She has also published on Lucas van Leyden and Winslow Homer.
Sarah E. Thompson is the assistant curator for Japanese Prints. She received an AB from Harvard College and a PhD from Columbia University, and later taught Japanese and Asian art history at Vassar College, Oberlin College, and the University of Oregon before coming to the MFA in 2004. From 2005 to 2010, she co-supervised the Japanese Print Access and Documentation Project (JPADP), which registered, rehoused, digitized, and published online the MFA collection of more than 50,000 Japanese prints, the largest outside Japan.
Tanya Uyeda, associate conservator for Japanese Paintings in the Asian Conservation Studio, is responsible for the care of paintings in many formats including hanging scrolls, handscrolls, screens, panels, and albums. Uyeda received her MA in Conservation of Cultural Properties from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and trained for six years at the Handa Kyuseido Studio in Tokyo, Japan.
Lauren Whitley is curator in the David and Roberta Logie Department of Textile and Fashion Arts. Since joining the MFA staff in 1992, she has curated a number of exhibitions including “Icons of Style: Fashion Makers, Models, and Images” and “Threads on the Edge: Fiber Art from the Daphne Farago Collection” (2002); “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” (2005); and “High Style and Hoop Skirts: 1850s Fashion” (2004). Whitley holds an MA degree in Museum Studies: Costumes and Textiles from the Fashion Institute of Technology, and received her BA in Art History from Trinity College.
Joan Wright, Bettina Burr Conservator, Asian Conservation for Japanese Prints, Indian and Islamic Paintings has close to 30 years of experience as a museum conservator, from 1998 onward concentrating in Asian works. A 1984 graduate of SUNY Cooperstown with an MA and Certificate in Conservation, she lead the design and implementation of the Japanese Print Access and Documentation Project (JPADP). In 2009 Wright was elected to the Print Council of America.