Alumni

Hannah Gadbois

Hannah Gadbois graduated from the Department of Art History in 2016. She is from Seekonk, Massachusetts and became interested in art history while attending high school there. While at UMass Dartmouth she received a grant from the Office of Undergraduate Research for a research project on representations of the New England post-industrial landscapes in the work of late-twentieth century artists. Concurrently, Hannah worked on several off-campus research projects including one concerning the work of the renowned American landscape painter, Albert Bierstadt, for an exhibition at the New Bedford Art Museum. Upon graduation Hannah received a prestigious Andrew Mellon Internship grant from the RISD Museum. There she worked with Emily Peters at the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Her contributions involved cataloguing Flemish prints in the extensive RISD archives. Hannah is planning to pursue a graduate degree in Art History.

https://risdmuseum.org/manual/448_inuit_printmaking_and_the_concept_of_purity

Adrien Mercier

Soon after graduating from the Art History Department in 2015, Adrien acquired a full time job at a highly regarded gallery, The Providence Art Club. This was due to his interactions with the Providence Art Club curators via his Senior Seminar class. Adrien is now the Director of Hera Gallery. His role is to handle all administrative and public relation functions. This includes supervising interns and volunteers, facilitating communications between artist members, board members, and the general public, writing press releases and gallery publications, developing fundraising initiatives, assist with exhibiting artists, curating exhibitions, planning public events, and act as Hera Gallery’s representative to town meetings, network events, and openings. During his time at UMass Dartmouth, Adrien was an active member in the Art History Club, which has proven to be beneficial to his current position.

Adrien Mercier: Degree in Art History led to position as gallery director

Lauren Scharf

Lauren Scharf is a member of UMass Dartmouth’s class of 2014, graduating with a B.A. in Art History. Upon graduation, she was selected for a competitive summer internship in the Contemporary Art Department at the RISD Museum in Providence. Since late 2014, Lauren has been an intern at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, where she supports research and publishing efforts for the museum’s world-renowned exhibition program.

Patricia Birk-Smith

Graduated 2014, Designer and Customer Support Specialist

TJ Smith's Victorian House

Seth Abrahamson

Graduated 2013, Art Collection Manager

Provincetown Art Association and Museum

Kate Thornhill

Originally from New Bedford, Massachusetts, Kate Thornhill is a 2010 graduate in Art History BA and Photography BFA. Since the beginning of 2016 she's held the position of Repository Community Librarian/Assistant Professor at Oregon Health & Science University Library leading digital assets and institutional repositories outreach and assessment. During her time at UMass Dartmouth she worked for the Visual Resources Center where her interests in visual culture studies and digital archives sparked a drive to become a digital collections librarian. In 2013 Kate graduated from Simmons College Library and Information Science School with a master’s degree focused on digital curation. After graduate school Kate served as the Digital Scholarship Librarian for Lesley University's Art and Design Library and oversaw the digital imaging and scholarship services. Actively engaged in the library and archives profession through Visual Resources Association, Society for American Archivists, and Association of Information Science and Technology, Kate's research, scholarship, and professional service focuses on digital repository user and system assessment and coordinating the Visual Resources Association's social networking presence. She is currently writing a book chapter for an American Library Association publication about Library Data Migration. Currently, Ms. Thornhill is employed at Oregon Health & Science University as Repository Community Librarian.

Erin Dziedzic

Erin Dziedzic, a 2003 Art History magna cum laude graduate in art history, is Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri.

Erin leads one of the Midwest's greatest collections of modern art, which welcomes 130,000 visitors a year. She left Savannah College of Art and Design, where she was a curator, and where she earned her MFA after graduating from UMass Dartmouth.

Erin, a native of Palmer, Mass., also founded and edits artcorejournal.net, an online biannual journal dedicated to contemporary art.

Kemper Director Barbara O'Brien called Erin "a tremendous talent whose work on ambitious and dynamic exhibitions and public programs...showed creativity and an ability to envision a new relationship between exhibitions, public events and engaged museum visitors.