Sarah Russell

Sarah studies the art, literature, and intellectual culture of early modern Spain. She earned a B.A. in Art History and Spanish from the University of Virginia, where her Distinguished Majors Program thesis, “Velázquez and the Demystification of Myth” won the Lindner Center Prize for the Best Undergraduate Thesis in Art History. Before coming to Columbia, she taught English in Spain with a Fulbright grant. Sarah was a student coordinator for the New York Renaissance Consortium and the Bettman Lecture Series (2020–2022), taught Art Humanities as a GSAS Teaching Fellow (2022–2023), and has worked as an advisor in the Office for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships and as a summer instructor at the Office for Academic Access and Engagement. Supported by a Fulbright Award, she was a visiting researcher at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2024–2025), and later was the Rudolf Wittkower Fellow at Columbia University (2025–2026). Sarah is the incoming Center for Spain in America Curatorial Fellow at the Meadows Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas (2026–27). She is curating an exhibition based on her dissertation at Columbia’s Wallach Art Gallery, set to open in October 2027, thanks to generous funding from organizations like the Center for Spain in America, the Spanish government’s Ministerio de la Cultura, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.