Current Students

Emily Fenichel

Emily received her B.A. in both Art History and French at the University of Mary Washington in 2006. Her senior thesis on the lunettes of the Sistine Chapel sparked an interest in Michelangelo and sacred art that has continued through her graduate studies at the University of Virginia. Her Master's Thesis, under the direction of Prof. Summers, also focused on the lunettes of the Sistine Chapel, with a particular emphasis on the Marian iconography and theology found in this zone of the chapel's decoration. Completed in 2008, Emily's Master's Thesis laid the foundation for her current dissertation project (also under the direction of Prof. Summers), which explores Michelangelo's Marian imagination throughout his career. She is grateful for the support of the Society of Fellows' Dissertation Year Fellowship, which will support her writing in the coming year. In the fall of 2012, she will present part of her research on Michelangelo's "Sibylline" Madonnas at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in Cincinnati.

Emily's passion for teaching has also been nurtured at the University of Virginia. She has been a TA for numerous courses, including Prof. Fiorani's Study Abroad program in Rome (Summer 2009). In addition to being a visiting professor at Germanna Community College in 2010-2011, she taught an undergraduate seminar entitled Art and Devotion in Renaissance Italy in the Fall of 2010. Emily has also been, for the past two years, a graduate assistant on the Digital Leonardo Project (www.treatisteonpainting.org) under the direction of Prof. Francesca Fiorani and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH).