PhD Candidate; History of Art & Architecture Teaching Fellow – AH 201

Sybil is a third year PhD Candidate studying American art and material culture in the long nineteenth century. Grounded in object analysis and interdisciplinarity, her research explores the intersection between material and visual culture, the expression of individual and national identities, and intercultural exchange in the Atlantic World.

Sybil’s dissertation, “Worth Its Salt: Salvage in the Maritime Visual and Material Culture of America’s Long Nineteenth Century,” explores maritime salvage as object, material, and process to interrogate conceptions of identity, property, and value during the Age of Sail. Through the study of three object assemblages centered around shipwreck paintings, scrimshaw, and ship figureheads, her work demonstrates how conceptions of maritime salvage acted as a driving force in contemporary artistic production, patronage, and collecting. Sybil’s project contributes to the growing body of scholarship in the Blue Humanities by challenging and expanding traditional narratives of interpretation and cultural meaning in the maritime world.

Sybil has previously held internships and fellowships at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Bard Graduate Center, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., and the Winter Antiques Show.

Dissertation in Progress:
 “Worth Its Salt: Salvage in the Maritime Visual and Material Culture of America’s Long Nineteenth Century”

2022-2023:
co-President and Guest Lecture Series co-Coordinator,  Graduate Student History of Art & Architecture Association

Senior Editor, SEQUITUR

2021-2022:
co-President,  Graduate Student History of Art & Architecture Association
Junior Editor; SEQUITUR

2020-2021:
GSO Representative, Graduate Student History of Art & Architecture Association

Research Interests:

  • Late Eighteenth- & Early Nineteenth-Century American Art
  • Decorative Arts and Material Culture
  • History of Collecting and Travel