Meet the Fellows
The Met awards over 50 fellowships annually to scholars from around the world. The Department of Asian Art is honored to host the following talented individuals this year.

Meet the 2021–2022 Fellows
PhD, Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, Bard Graduate Center
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Julie Bellemare was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to conduct the first comprehensive study of agate carvings in Qing China, examining patterns of production and appreciation and the functions of these objects in imperial contexts
PhD candidate, Art History, University of California, Los Angeles
The Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship
Joy Xiao Chen was awarded a fellowship to investigate the heterogeneity of 17th-century Chinese landscape art and explore the dynamics of localisms and regionalisms in Ming–Qing Chinese art and aesthetics.
Master’s, Art Theory in Art Management Interdisciplinary Program, Seoul National University
Korea Foundation Internship
Hye Youn Choi was awarded a scholarship to gain curatorial experience and develop related skills in the Department of Asian Art.
PhD, Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Xiaohan Du was awarded a fellowship to research Sino-Japanese Chan/Zen Buddhist calligraphy and painting and their relationship to the Chinese monk Yishan Yining (1247–1317).
Past Fellows
PhD, East Asian Art History, Princeton University
J. Clawson Mills Scholarship
Miriam Chusid was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to examine how creators of afterlife imagery engaged a spectrum of postmortem concerns and expectations in increasingly diverse Buddhist communities in premodern Japan.
PhD candidate, History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Shivani Sud was awarded a fellowship to conduct collection research and complete her dissertation, "The Atelier, the Studio, the Art School: Artistic Knowledge and Painting Practices in Jaipur, ca. 1780–1920."
PhD candidate, History of Art, Yale University
The Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship
Shweta Raghu was awarded a fellowship to examine the ways in which artistic exchanges on the Coromandel Coast during the 17th and 18th centuries spurred innovation in the use of cloth, wood, metal, and ivory.
PhD candidate, History of Art, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Marica and Jan Vilcek Fellowship in Art History
Hui Fang was awarded a Marica and Jan Vilcek Fellowship in Art History to work on her dissertation, which examines the dynamic and multicultural art world of the capital city Yingtian/Nanjing in early Ming-dynasty China (1368–1450).
PhD candidate, Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Mai Yamaguchi was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to complete her dissertation, "Paintings, Bound: The Problems of Reading Nineteenth-Century Japanese Printed Pictorial Books," using Japanese illustrated books in The Met collection.
PhD candidate, Religion, Columbia University
Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship
Dessislava Vendova was awarded a Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship to research and write her dissertation, “The Great Life of the Body of the Buddha: Re-Examination and Re-Assessment of the Images and Narratives of the Life of Buddha Shakyamuni.”
PhD, School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University
ARIAH (Association of Research Institutes in Art History) East Asian Fellowship
Ziqi Wang was awarded an ARIAH (Association of Research Institutes in Art History) East Asian Fellowship to research a book project, titled “Architectural Images in Chinese Paintings of the Song and Yuan Dynasties.”
PhD Candidate, Art History, University of Vienna
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Aurora Graldi was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to examine the rise of Buddhist metal icon production in Northeast India and the Himalayas during the sixth through the ninth century and the increasing importance of portable Buddha icons in liturgical practices across a vast geographic area.
PhD, Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Jens Bartel was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to conduct research on paintings by Maruyama-Shijō school artists from The Met collection, including recently donated works from the Mary Griggs Burke Collection.
PhD, Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
Assistant Professor, Miami University
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship
Michael J. Hatch was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship to study The Met collection of early nineteenth-century Chinese art for his book manuscript, The Senses of Painting in China, 1790–1840.
PhD candidate, History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Sonali Dhingra was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to study the ontology of large-scale stone sculpture of bodhisattvas from Odisha to unearth the soteriological and devotional elements they embodied for medieval Indian Buddhists.
PhD candidate, History of Art and Architecture, Brown University
Adjunct lecturer, Boston University
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Amy Huang was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to research visual modes of remembrance in Chinese paintings through seventeenth-century Nanjing and to investigate how memory operated through texts, images, and historic sites.
PhD candidate, Religion, Columbia University
PhD, Literature, Ōtani University
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship
Elizabeth Tinsley was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship to research Japanese religious visual and material culture in the context of Buddhist debates, and in the ritual evocations and manifestations of divinities.
PhD candidate, Art History, University of California, Los Angeles
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Ja Won Lee was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to investigate art collecting practice and its impact on visual culture within the antiquarian movement in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Korea.
PhD candidate, Art History, Waseda University
ARIAH (Association of Research Institutes in Art History) East Asian Fellowship
Marimi Tateno was awarded an ARIAH (Association of Research Institutes in Art History) East Asian Fellowship to research the emergence of courtesans, yujo, as a subject of genre paintings in the early Edo period of Japan at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
PhD, Art History, Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts
Professor, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology
J. S. Lee Memorial Fellowship
Qiu Zhongming was awarded a J. S. Lee Memorial Fellowship to study visual arts from the Silk Road from the Han to Tang periods at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
PhD candidate, Art History, University of California, Los Angeles
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship
Kai-Yi Ho was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship to explore the impact of lay Buddhism and Daoism on the sacred and secular functions of paintings with religious themes in late imperial China.
PhD candidate, Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University, China
Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship
Xiaoxia Liu was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to examine the critical role of bird décor in the evolution of Chinese bronzes.
PhD, Art History, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
Associate Professor, Central Academy of Fine Arts
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship
Yan Shao was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship to work on her manuscript entitled, “The Early Artworks of the Seventeenth-Century Chinese Painter Chen Hongshou and the Origin of His Painting Style.”