Emma Leidy

Emma Leidy is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in late medieval art and architecture of western and central Europe. She is currently conducting research on her dissertation, “Miraculous Images Across the Alps: Marian Devotion, Patronage, and Artistic Exchange, ca. 1350-1550,” under the supervision of Professors Holger A. Klein and Gregory Bryda. Her dissertation research is supported by a PhD scholarship awarded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation (2026-2027). She previously received the Mellon Humanities International Travel Fellowship (2025) and the Casa Muraro Summer Research Fellowship (2023). 

Since beginning her doctoral studies at Columbia, Emma was selected as a Lead Teaching Fellow (2023-2024) and Senior Lead Teaching Fellow (2024-2025), as well as an instructor for Art Humanities as a GSAS Teaching Fellow in Columbia’s Core Curriculum (2025-2025). Within the Department of Art History and Archaeology she served as student coordinator for the Bettman Lecture Series (2022-2024) and the Branner Forum for Medieval Art (2021-2025). In her role as graduate student coordinator, she also supported Riggio undergraduate travel seminars (2023, 2024) and Columbia’s summer study abroad program in Venice (2024, 2025, 2026). 

Emma previously received her B.A. from the University of Virginia (2019) in Art History and German Languages and Literature, where her Distinguished Majors Program Thesis was awarded the Lindner Center Prize for Best Undergraduate Thesis in Art History. Emma earned her M.A. from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany (2021) with support from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). She also previously held an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2019).