Ph.D, University of Virginia, 2002.

I am particularly interested in the relationships among art, science, economics, and politics in the Age of Enlightenment.

It is for this reason that the scope of my research goes beyond that of traditional art history and incorporates the histories of medicine and natural philosophy (science in its broadest sense). My current book project explores Joseph Wright's (1734-1797) links-personal and professional-to distinguished scientists, physicians, poets, and other intellectuals in eighteenth-century England, and how those connections play out visually in his work. I have already published two related articles: one in the Zeitschrift fόr Kunstgeschichte (3: 2004), entitled, "Shedding New Botanical Light on Joseph Wright's Portrait of Brooke Boothby: Rousseauian Pleasure versus Medicinal Utility" and another in the Huntington Library Quarterly (68:4, 2005), entitled "'The Book of Nature is Open to All Men': Geology, Mining and History in Joseph Wright's Derbyshire Landscapes."

I am also presently editing a book of essays on art/science connections in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (forthcoming in 2008), which brings together recent scholarship in the field by several contributing authors.

The interdisciplinary methodology of my research reflects my academic up-bringing, having worked closely with Professor Christopher Johns (Vanderbilt, Art History), himself a former student of Professor Barbara Maria Stafford (University of Chicago, Art History). My most recent research centers on the English portrait painter and electrical scientist Benjamin Wilson, FRS (1721-1788). I have already begun to edit Wilson's autobiographical memoir, which will be published by the Walpole Society in 2012.