Debbie Meniru
Debbie Meniru is a London-based writer and curator. Her writing leans into emotion, anecdote and humour to explore art as a deeply personal experience that reaches far beyond the walls of the gallery. Her words have been published internationally, including by Hatje Cantz, Rizzoli, Tate, Hayward Gallery Publishing, CURA., Numéro Art and New Contemporaries. She has curated The Conch at South London Gallery and outdoor installations by Jyll Bradley and Souad Abdelrasoul at the Hayward Gallery. She has also worked on exhibitions at Tate Modern, the Migration Museum and Somerset House. She has an MA in Curating from the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Xiaojue Michelle Zhu
Xiaojue Michelle Zhu is an art historian and doctoral researcher at The Courtauld Institute of Art. She completed her BA in History of Art and German Studies at Vanderbilt University and her MA at The Courtauld, specialising in German modernism and the visual culture of the Weimar Republic. Her thesis examines representations of non-normative bodies in Weimar Germany from an intersectional perspective and explores their relationships with contemporary discourses about the concepts of citizenship and criminality.
Sophia Dumoulin
Sophia Dumoulin completed her BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences, focusing on Psychology, International Relations and Philosophy, at Amsterdam University College. She then did a BA and MA in History of Art at The Courtauld, where she now works as Short Courses Events Officer. During her studies, Sophia specialised in English medieval art and architecture, and she has written extensively on buildings like the Temple Church and Westminster Abbey. In September 2023, Sophia will start a PhD at The Courtauld with Dr Tom Nickson about the use and appropriation of space in Westminster Abbey between 1399 and 1603.
Jordan Quill
Jordan Quill is a PhD candidate at Courtauld Institute of Art. His research focuses on the experience of textiles in the palaces of Northern India during the early modern period, supervised by Professor Sussan Babaie, and advised by Professor Deborah Swallow. His MPhil in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at The University of Oxford equipped him with skills in classical and spoken Tibetan language, and knowledge of Tibetan and Himalayan history, culture, literature and religion. His thesis, adapted here into his article, is based out of sustained engagement with Himalayan arts, academically and professionally in London, Ladakh, India, and Nepal.
Roisin Kennan
Roisin Kennan studied History of Art at The Courtauld with the special option ‘Wordplay: Intersections Between the Verbal and Visual’, under the supervision of Dr Caroline Levitt. She has an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Cambridge and is drawn to studying works that exist at the intersection between literature and the visual arts. She is currently working in an antique print shop specialising in prints from the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Ana Gabriela Rodríguez
Ana Gabriela Rodríguez is a PhD candidate at The Courtauld Institute of Art and an art historian of Modern and Contemporary Latinx, Latin American, and American Art. Her doctoral research focuses on post-war Puerto Rican graphic arts.
Alice Dodds
Alice Dodds is a PhD student at The Courtauld Institute of Art. She completed her BA (2022) and MA (2023) at The Courtauld, studying her MA under Professor David Peters Corbett. She has given papers on women, craft, and ecology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for the De Morgan Foundation and 32nd International Virginia Woolf Conference.
Archie Gibbs
Archie Gibbs is a writer and academic based between Melbourne and London. He has experience in a range of positions in museums and galleries within the UK, Germany and US. His research centres artists with novel approaches to representation and figuration in global contemporary art. He has recently completed an MA in History of Art at The Courtauld in the special option group ‘Race and Nation in Post-war Black British Art’. He also holds a Scottish MA in History of Art from the University of Glasgow.
Chloé Glass
Chloé Glass graduated with distinction in 2023 from The Courtauld Institute of Art with a Masters in History of Art specialising in contemporary British art and critical race theory. She previously received her BA with distinction in History of Art from Yale University. She has worked at several museums, including the Yale University Art Gallery, Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Pompidou and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, pursuing French and English curatorial research and public engagement. Her work aims to highlight the power of art and cultural institutions as tools to create social change.
Zahra Khademi
Zahra Khademi is an art historian specialising in the Persianate world. She is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Professor Sussan Babaie at The Courtauld and works as a Research Assistant for the forthcoming exhibition Art of the Great Mongol State to be held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2026-27. Previously, she worked as a Curator cum Researcher at the Islamic Arts Museum, Malaysia and tenured as a Cultural Heritage Expert at Iran’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage. Previous projects include ‘Nowruz: Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in Twelve Nations’ (MCTH 2016), ‘Islamic Bookbinding’ (IAMM, 2017) and ‘Qajar Ceramics – Bridging Tradition and Modernity’ (IAMM, 2019).
Claudia Stanley
Claudia Stanley is an MA graduate from The Courtauld, specialising in Dress History. She received a Director’s Honour for her dissertation ‘Commodifying the Past’: Ossie Clark’s Uses of History, 1969-1974, graduating with a high distinction. She also studied at Edinburgh University and École du Louvre, Paris, and has written for The Courtauld’s Documenting Fashion: A Dress History Blog.