Katherine Santos

M.A., 2023, Art History and Graduate Academic Certification in Art Museum Education
B.A., Art History with minors in French and Studio Art: Metalsmithing and Jewelry

Santos’ graduate research includes contemporary material culture, dress and adornment, gender and feminist studies, museum methodologies, and decolonization of museums. 

Aside from academics, Santos has worked as a part-time museum educator with the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Dallas as an intern and with the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Santos also has worked with the UNT Special Collections Library in the UNT Libraries as a student assistant in the preservation lab. 

She is passionate about object preservation and making artwork relatable and accessible to diverse audiences of all backgrounds and abilities. Santos’ goal in completing a graduate education is to enter the art museum field and provide the artistic world with a unique and individual perspective.   

Santos has been awarded The Contemporary Indigenous Art Internship with the Tozzer Anthropology Library and the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University. This specific internship is centered on increasing the representation of contemporary Indigenous art in North America within the research collections of both libraries. Through this experience, Santos can engage in complex issues such as decolonizing library spaces through collections work. She will also undertake collections analysis to identify what each library is collecting related to contemporary Indigenous art of North America and to identify gaps in existing collections. This internship aligns perfectly with Katherine’s M.A. research project, written under the supervision of Art Education faculty Paula Lupkin, Jennifer Way, Laura Evans, and Robert Smith.