2026 Student Summit
Meet our Proposal Reviewers
Director
Housatonic Museum of Art
Housatonic Community College
Director and Professor of Practice
Lehigh University Art Galleries
Lehigh University
Interpretation Specialist and independent curator
The Wolfsonian–FIU
McKnight Doctoral Fellow
Texts and Technology PhD Program
University of Central Florida
Meet our Inaugural Student Council
Lehigh University
University of Central Florida
Presentation Categories
Exhibition, Program, and Special Project Presentations: Have you developed a physical or digital exhibition? Have you put together a special public program or worked intensively with collection objects? Share the details of an exhibition or special project in the field with future colleagues!
Research Paper: Working on new research? Present your paper to practice your presentation skills and gain valuable feedback. Topics can include museum or cultural studies, digital humanities, campus collections and archives, and more! Please note, scholarship can be a “rough draft,” but should not be the recitation of a paper presented elsewhere.
Learning and Engagement Approaches: Are you actively teaching with your academic museum or gallery on campus? What types of approaches have you developed to working with different audiences, whether K-12, peers, or the general public? Share a presentation that explains (and maybe even mirrors) those pedagogical approaches.
The summit will conclude with a Coffee Hour Debrief where participants will have the opportunity to meet with peers and mentors to discuss the development of their work. This informal gathering space will be the perfect way to end our day together and will give students a rare opportunity to share their thoughts in a welcoming professional environment!
Presentation Schedule
11:30-1:15 EST – Exhibition, Program, and Special Project Presentation
| Presentation Name | Presenter(s) |
| I Do Bugs”: Creating an integrated Pest Management Program as a Student Intern | Fern Rice |
| Musecart: Designing a Cart for Museums and Galleries | Bronte Kunkler |
| Curio | Sarah Mielke |
| Culture, Chemistry, and Color: Kiln and Glaze Technology in Chinese Ceramics | Collett Akins |
| Patrick Kelly: Reclamation by Design | Sage Drisker |
| The Mother(less) Archive: Matrilineal Absences in Contemporary Art | Ashley Shan |
1:30-3:00 EST – Research Papers
| Presentation Name | Presenter(s) |
| Deep Cut | Norah Harson |
| From Gospel to Geopolitics: The Impact of American Missionaries on the US-China Public Relationship | Ray Zhang |
| When Students Choose: The Relationship between Participatory Acquisitions and LGBTQ+ Representation in University Collections | Robert (Bobby) Yalam |
| From Periphery to Primary: The Heavy-Handed Transformation of Two 16th Century Flemish Tapestry Fragments | Kelsey Limpert |
| Map Making and Treasure Hunting: Understanding and supporting the information practices of artist researchers | Melanie Landsittel |
3:15-4:45 EST – Learning and Engagement Approaches
| Presentation Name | Presenter(s) |
| Reckoning with ArtWork | Christian Gonzalez Ho |
| A Journey Through Time: A Paleoclimate Investigation | Laila Cook |
| Student Engagement, Sidekicks, and Social Media | Julia Dixon |
| The Art Museum as Academic Hub – Curriculum and Community | Christina Cook |
| The Hilliard Art Museum: Bridging the artist’s journey beyond the Acadiana Region with academic engagement | Lorena Ortiz Merino |
