Lauren Dodds

Lauren Dodds is a postdoctoral researcher (staff) for the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute and Humanities in a Digital World. She earned her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Southern California. Her dissertation, “Collecting the Renaissance: A Cultural Legacy of Italian Renaissance Art in Midcentury America,” studies the creation and dispersal of the largest private collection of early modern Italian art ever assembled by an American collector, with over three thousand works. Her project grapples with issues surrounding collecting, conservation practices, museum history, cultural appropriation, and the place of Italian Renaissance art in twentieth-century American museums and civic life.

During her doctoral studies, Dr. Dodds received fellowships and grants from the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, the Visual Studies Research Institute, USC Dornsife Department of Art History, USC Provost’s Office, and the Lilly Fellows Program at Valparaiso University. Since completing her degree, Dr. Dodds taught at Pepperdine University, acted as a research assistant at the Getty Research Institute, and provided administrative support for Collaborations in History, Art, Religion, and Music (CHARM).

• Ph.D. Art History, University of Southern California, 5/2019
• MA Southern Methodist Univ, 5/2011
• BA Pepperdine Univ, 12/2008