Biography
Andrea is a PhD candidate in the History of Art and Architecture with a specialization in Italian Renaissance art and theology. Her research focuses on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century painting and religious discourse in Lombardy and the Veneto region. Specifically, her dissertation seeks to reunite the intense local history of Northern Italy with its geographical location during the theological debates of the reformations. She explores the visual exegesis and discourse regarding anti-Semitism, Protestant heretics, and witches, as well as interrogates what it meant for art in this period to be considered “modern.” By examining the work of artists such as Girolamo Romanino and Lorenzo Lotto, Andrea’s research realigns geography, theology, and local history in a way that allocates agency to both the artists and communities for whom the art was created and will show how, within a matter of years, the same imagery and tropes carried drastically different meanings for the region in which it was used.
Andrea joined the History of Art and Architecture Department in 2015 with a background in both art history and clinical psychology. For her master’s thesis in art history, Andrea examined the relationship between biblical hermeneutics, medieval sermons, and the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. In 2017, she received a Dietrich grant that allowed her to drive coast to coast in the United States visiting Kress European Art Collections in twenty-six different art repositories.
Education Details
PhD, Department of History of Art and Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, in progress, ABD April 2019
Master of Arts in Art History, Kent State University, 2015
Bachelor of Arts in Art History, Mary Baldwin College, 2013
Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology, East Carolina University, 2010
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology, Concord University, 2006
Selected Awards
Art Historian/Consultant for Carnegie Science Center’s “Da Vinci: The Exhibition,” 2019
Arts and Sciences Graduate Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2018-2019
Elizabeth Baranger Excellence in Teaching Award Nominee, 2018
Kress Fellowship in Art History to attend the Middlebury College Language Schools, 2016
Arts and Sciences Graduate Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2015-2016
Graduate Studies Teaching Fellowship, Kent State University, 2014-2015
Ulysse Desportes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Art History, Mary Baldwin University, 2012
Selected Conferences
“The Message on the Walls: Discovering the Visual Sermon of the Brancacci Chapel.” Southeastern College Art Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, October, 2015.
“Iconography of St. Peter in the Brancacci Chapel.” The Newberry: Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference, Chicago, IL, January, 2015.