Ancient American Art in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing Fellows

Caitlin received a PhD (2025) and an MPhil (2022) in Anthropology from Yale, an MA in Archaeology from Leiden University (2016), and a BA in Archaeology/Anthropology from Boston University (2013). As an anthropologist of ancient art, she is interested in the relationship between patterns, people, and pots, with expertise in the Formative Southern Maya Region. Her research integrates stylistic and compositional analysis to reconstruct pottery production and exchange. At the Met, she will develop a manuscript on the parallel histories of Usulután pottery in ancient Mesoamerica and the 20th-century American art market. Caitlin has contributed to archaeological research in Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. She is also passionate about museum education & object-based teaching.

Abby was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship to gain experience in a museum conservation lab. Her research interests center on textile conservation, with a focus on materials analysis, repatriation processes, and the preservation of textiles from Indigenous and marginalized communities—grounded in anthropological training and hands-on experience in fashion and fiber arts. Abby completed her coursework in textile conservation in the Fashion Institute of Technology's Fashion and Textile Studies MA program in May 2025.

Catherine Nuckols received her PhD in Art History and Latin American Studies from Tulane University in 2024. Her research examines the intersection of the visual and the linguistic in ancient Maya hieroglyphic writing and Indigenous epistemologies. Her dissertation, “Unfolding the Sign: Iconicity and Figuration in Maya Full-Figure Inscriptions,” examined full-figure inscriptions from the eighth-century sites of Palenque, Yaxchilán, Quiriguá, and Copán. While at The Met, she will expand the arguments of her dissertation into a book manuscript, grounding the project within larger explorations of script as image. Previously, she was an Ittleson Fellow with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

Karri Vaughn is an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She recently received her Master of Arts in textile conservation from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has a broad range of interests within the field of fashion and textile studies and the focus of her fellowship is on non-Western mount making and conservation treatments. She previously interned at the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Textile Conservation Laboratory of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.

Mary’s research is focused on the visual and material traditions of the Americas, particularly those of the Lambayeque culture (also known as the Sicán) circa 700 to 1300 CE on the northern Pacific coast of what is now Peru. Her dissertation is centered on a typology of Lambayeque metalworks, namely disembodied metal appendages in the shape of human hands. At The Met, she is studying the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing’s collection of Lambayeque objects, notably metal beakers, funerary masks, and tumis (ceremonial knives) thought to have once been used alongside and later deposited next to metal hands in high-status tombs. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art and Architecture department at Harvard University.

Hugo C. Ikehara Tsukayama was awarded a postdoctoral Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Research/Collections Specialist Fellowship to assist with the comprehensive reinstallation of The Met’s approximately 4,000 works of art from the Andean region of South America.

Hugo C. Ikehara Tsukayama was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Research/Collections Specialist Fellowship to assist with the comprehensive reinstallation of The Met’s approximately 4,000 works of art from the Andean region of South America.

Kristal is the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation (2020–2022). She is exploring the use of modular cleaning systems with rigid hydrogels to mitigate stains and environmental contaminants present on a man’s wrapper from the Bondoukou Region of Côte d’Ivoire and is also participating in the de-installation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in preparation for its renovation. She received her MA from the Bern University of Applied Sciences and the Abegg-Stiftung in 2019. She was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship to gain experience in the study and treatment of textiles from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in the context of a museum conservation department.

Louise is the Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellow for the arts of the ancient Americas (2021–2022). Her dissertation research addresses works of art in multiple media created by individual artists from the Wari Empire (600-1000 CE, Peru). She is currently a PhD candidate in Art History at UCLA. She was awarded a fellowship to analyze how individual artists shaped Wari artistic production in pre-Hispanic Peru (7th–11th century).

Patricia Lagarde was awarded a fellowship to conduct her project "Facing Pilgrimage," which positions sculpture at the Peruvian ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar as sacred entities (wak’a) integrated within Andean pilgrimage practices.

Hugo C. Ikehara Tsukayama was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Research/Collections Specialist Fellowship to assist with the comprehensive reinstallation of The Met’s approximately 4,000 works of art from the Andean region of South America.

Kristal Hale was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship to gain experience in the study and treatment of textiles from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in the context of a museum conservation department.

Rebecca Mendelsohn was awarded a Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship to compare animal imagery on objects associated with political authority in Mesoamerica and the northern Intermediate area during an era of heightened interaction, from 300 B.C. to A.D. 300.

Gioconda Arabel Fernández López was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship to conduct an analytical study of The Met collection of Pre-Columbian textiles and to gain experience in preventative conservation.

Gioconda Arabel Fernández López was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Conservation Fellowship to conduct an analytical study of The Met’s Pre-Columbian textile collection and to gain experience in preventative conservation.

Allison Caplan was awarded a Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship to examine indigenous knowledge surrounding the making, materials, and aesthetics of Nahua (Aztec) precious metal, lapidary, and feather works in The Met collection.

Alicia Boswell was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Cultures of Conservation, sponsored by the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, to participate in a joint curatorial and conservation project focused on ancient South American metallurgical studies.

Trenton Barnes was awarded The Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellowship to complete three chapters of an architectural history of Teotihuacan, Mexico, utilizing works in The Met collection as primary objects of study.

Caitlin Earley was awarded a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship to explore how the captive body expressed emotion and constructed social identities in Mesoamerica in the first comprehensive study of captives in ancient Maya art.

Alicia Boswell was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Cultures of Conservation, sponsored by the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, to participate in a joint curatorial and conservation project focused on ancient South American metallurgical studies.

Jessica Walthew was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Conservation Fellowship to research the intersection of the conservation of textiles and objects.