It is our pleasure to welcome Melissa Kerin as guest research at our center. She will stay with us until February 2019 and work on finishing a manuscript, Bodies of Offerings: The Materiality and Vitality of Tibetan Shrines, which received an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2014-15) and Howard Foundation Fellowship (2018-19).

Melissa Kerin is an associate professor of art history at the Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virgina (USA).
Her primary field of research is the art and material culture of South Asia from the medieval and modern periods. Along with a number of articles and chapters, Kerin has authored two books. Her third book project, under contract with Oxford University Press, is an edited volume analyzing the ethical treatment of cultural heritage in the U.S., South Asia, the Middle East. Since joining the faculty of Washington and Lee’s Art and Art History Department in 2011, Kerin has taught a range of courses related to the interconnections among art, religion, memory, and identity. Kerin holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School.