Graduate Students

Simin Amini

M.A., Art History, Alzahra University. Tehran, Iran
M.A., Near and Middle Eastern Studies, SOAS University of London
B.A., Fashion and textile design, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran

Research interests: Ancient Iran Art and Archaeology, Persian mythology and literature, Zoroastrianism, Islamic Art art and Archaeology, Museum Studies.

PhD candidate 

Matthew Canepa

simina@uci.edu

B.A., Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

Research Interests: The History of Photography in Iran, The reception of Ancient Iran during 19th and 20th Century, Iran.

Alka Patel

Co-advisor: Matthew Canepa

Research Interests: My research focuses on the Achaemenid Empire, particularly its cross-cultural interactions with subjugated peoples and the development of imperial ideology as reflected in art and architecture. I am especially interested in the cultural and political dynamics between the Achaemenid Empire and ancient Greek societies, with a regional emphasis on Anatolia and the broader Near East. More broadly, my work explores imperial mentality, governance strategies, legitimation narratives, and processes of acculturation within ancient empires.

Agnik Bhattacharya
 

M.A., History, Presidency University, Kolkata, India
B.A., Ancient Indian and World History, Culture and Archaeology, Sanskrit College, University of Calcutta, India

Research interests: Ancient South Asian History, South and Central Asian Archaeology, Ancient Political Thought, History of Ideas, Global Intellectual History, History of Modern South and Central Asia, History of Archaeology and History of Museum Studies.

Dissertation: "Political Narratives and Archaeological Investigations: A Global History of Afghan Archaeology in Modern Afghanistan, 1833–1979"

I have been awarded the John F. Richards Afghanistan Fellowship in the year 2023 and 2024.

I was selected as a Graduate Research Associate in the Association for the Global Political Thought, Harvard University. https://globalpoliticalthought.hsites.harvard.edu/people/agnik-bhattacharya.

Matthew Canepa

agnikb@uci.edu

Zane Casimir

M.A., Art History, University of Oregon
B.F.A., Sequential Art, Savannah College of Art and Design
B.A., Japanese/Asian Studies, Purdue University

Research Interests: Spaces of Play; Japanese Design-of-Environment; Modern Architecture; Japanese Art/Material Culture/Visual Culture; Video game and Play Studies; Contemporary Reception of Art Historical ideas and forms (i.e. Semiotics, Kitsch, Reproductions and Digital/Virtual Re-presentations).

Bert Winther-Tamaki

zcasimir@uci.edu

Ileana De Giuseppe

M.A. (Summa cum laude), History, Preservation and Enhancement of the Artistic and Archaeological Heritage and Landscape, University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy
B.A. (Summa cum laude), Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, Ravenna, Italy

Research Interest: Achaemenid Art and Archaeology, Hellenistic Art and Archaeology, Museum Studies, Communication of the Cultural Heritage.

Mathew Canepa

idegiuse@uci.edu

M.A., Art Theory, Hongik University, Korea
B.A., German Language and Literature, Art History and Theory, Arts and Cultural Management, Hongik University, Korea

Research Interests: Korean art, modern and contemporary art, digital art, new media theory, computational and generative art, post-colonialism studies, science and technology studies, media art preservation.

Gabrielle Jung

Anthony Graham

M.S., Critical, Curatorial, Conceptual, Columbia University, New York
B.A., Architecture, University of San Diego, California

Research Interests: contemporary art, materiality, and embodiment.

Bridget Cooks

grahama2@uci.edu

B.A., Art History (Honors), French, Studio Art, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Research Interest: Guy Debord and spectacle, modern and contemporary art history, Marxist theory, and traces of transhistorical encounters (alternate constructions of time and history) that artworks produce.

Zachary Korol Gold

M.A., Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
B.A., Visual Art, Brown University

Dissertation: "Reconfiguring Nature, Technology, and Sense: Pierre Huyghe's Situated Artworks"

Research interests: Contemporary art, ecology, ecocriticism, history of science and technology, alternative agriculture, phenomenology.

Website: https://thisismy.website/

James Nisbet

zkorolgo@uci.edu

MA, Humanities (Art History), University of Chicago

BFA, Painting, Rhode Island School of Design

Research Interests: theories of avant-garde, postwar Japanese art, art of the Zen boom, art historiography

Nastasya Kosygina

M.A., Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
B.A., Classics and Art History & B.S. in Chemistry, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Research Interests: Byzantine studies, subaltern studies, water, infrastructure, premodern Mediterranean, Rome, Constantinople, geology, urban archaeology, material culture, Greek and Syriac paleography, classical and postclassical reception.

Dissertation: "Palimpsestuous Urbanism: Infrastruucture and the Watery Underwriting of Late Antique Rome"

Matthew Canepa

nkosygin@uci.edu

Bermet Nishanova

M.S. in Art Conservation, Institute of Fine Arts NYU, M.A., Art History, University of Chicago
BA/ BS University of Georgia

Dissertation: "Entangled Materialities: Medieval Textiles in Central Asia, Iran, and India (9th to 13th Centuries C.E.)”

Research interests:  Textiles, medieval production techniques, scientific analysis, art conservation, medieval Persian literature, and Islamic and South Asian art and architecture.

Alka Patel and Matthew Canepa

bnishano@uci.edu

B.A. Art History and Visual Culture, Bard College

Lee Purvey

B.A., Anthropology, Grinnell College

Research Interests: Modern architecture in Mexico and the United States; the influence of pre-Columbian monumental architecture and Indigenous vernacular building practices on modern and contemporary architecture; the intersections between the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and architecture; functionalism.

Abigail Lapin Dardashti

lpurvey@uci.edu

Bryan Truitt

M.A., Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
B.A., Art Practice and Cognitive Science, University of California, Berkeley

Research Interests: digital media, biopolitics, cultural studies, feminist and queer theory, science and technology studies, critical race theory, social and environmental justice.

Website

Aaron Trammell

btruitt1@uci.edu

M.A., Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
B.A., Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Research interests: Modern and contemporary Latin American and Latina/o/x art; postcolonial theory; displacement ; and the intersection of art, science, and technology.

Jianda(Dada) Wang

M.A., Art History, University of California, Davis
B.A., Art History, Critical Theory, Macalester College, MN

Research Interests: Modern and contemporary Chinese art, Asian American art, performance and affect, abstraction and Illegibility.

Roberta Wue

jiandaw@uci.edu