Research & Writing Interests

My research and writing explore the intersections of art history, museum practice, interpretation, and public engagement. I am interested in how objects, images, and exhibitions produce meaning across scholarly, institutional, and lived contexts, and in how museums can create conditions for inquiry, reflection, and exchange. Bringing together art-historical analysis with questions of affect, pedagogy, visitor meaning-making, and experience design, my work increasingly focuses on the university museum as a space for interdisciplinary learning and public dialogue. I am especially drawn to forms of writing that move between academic and accessible registers, including conference papers, essays, interpretive texts, and longer-form research.

Emotional Intelligence in Museum Engagement and Experiences

I am interested in how museum experiences can invite emotional, affective, and reflective forms of engagement. This includes how exhibition design, interpretive framing, spatial context, and participatory elements shape the ways visitors feel, connect, and make meaning. I am especially drawn to questions of how emotion operates not as a secondary response, but as a meaningful dimension of learning, interpretation, and public experience.

Reflective Interpretation

I am interested in forms of interpretation that encourage slow looking, inquiry, and sustained engagement with objects, images, and ideas. This includes the design of prompts, activities, and spaces that open room for reflection without overdetermining meaning. I see reflective interpretation as a way of supporting both intellectual and personal connection while preserving complexity and curiosity.

Visitor Meaning-Making

I am interested in how visitors construct meaning through encounters with exhibitions, collections, and museum spaces. This includes questions of personal narrative, memory, dialogue, and how museum experiences can become sites for individual and collective interpretation. My work in this area is shaped by both art-historical inquiry and visitor-centered research methods.

Object-Based Learning and Visual Inquiry

I am interested in the pedagogical possibilities of objects and works of art, especially in relation to close looking, questioning, comparison, and interpretation. This includes how museums can support learning across disciplines through direct engagement with visual and material culture. I am especially interested in how object-based inquiry can foster confidence, curiosity, and deeper forms of attention.

Art History and Public Interpretation

I am interested in the relationship between art-historical research and public-facing interpretation. This includes questions of how scholarly knowledge is translated, shared, and made meaningful in museum contexts through exhibitions, interpretive texts, programming, and educational design. I am drawn to approaches that preserve rigor while also expanding accessibility and dialogue.

Memory, Materiality, and Narrative

Across my scholarly and creative work, I return to questions of memory, materiality, fragmentation, and narrative. I am interested in how objects and images hold traces of lived experience, cultural meaning, and emotional resonance, and in how visual and material forms can carry both personal and collective histories.

Academic Museums and Interdisciplinary Learning

I am particularly interested in the university museum as a site for interdisciplinary teaching, collaborative inquiry, and public exchange. I see academic museums as uniquely positioned to bring together research, collections, pedagogy, and community engagement in ways that expand how art and culture is studied, taught, and experienced.

Japanese Art and Visual Narrative

I am interested in Japanese art and visual culture, particularly the ways narrative, symbolism, and formal choices shape interpretation. My earlier research on Genji Monogatari Emaki explored how color, composition, and visual nuance contribute to narrative meaning and emotional tone, and this continues to inform my broader interest in close looking and interpretive depth.

Contemporary Art and Exhibition Context

I am interested in contemporary art and the ways exhibition context shapes interpretation, political meaning, and viewer response. My research on Martin Puryear and the Venice Biennale sharpened my interest in how sculptural form, historical reference, and institutional framing intersect within contemporary spaces.