Kudos for Summer 2025
Kudos to… Lisa Cakmak (MSP03) and Katharine Raff (MSP05) who co-curated the Art Institute of Chicago’s recent major exhibition, Myth & Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection. This exhibition marked the North American debut of 58 ancient Roman sculptures from the largest private collection of Roman sculpture in the world, nearly half of which hadn’t been seen in over 70 years. The exhibition was incredibly well attended (over 171,000 visitors) and attracted significant positive coverage in major national and international news outlets. Lisa and Katherine also published an exhibition catalogue via the Yale University Press.
Kudos to… Eric Lehrer (MSP04), sociocultural anthropologist, curator, and Professor of History at Concordia University in Montreal, has been selected as one of the University of Michigan’s 2025-26 Frankel Institute Fellows. Erica’s fields of research are memory/heritage/museums, Jewish-Polish heritage, and decolonial museology in East Central Europe.
Kudos to… John Low (MSP05) who recently retired as a Professor Emeritus from The Ohio State University and has returned to his tribal community, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi. We wish John all the best in his retirement!
Kudos to… Ricky Punzalan (MSP08 and current MSP Director), who in late August 2025 received a Society of American Archivists Council Exemplary Service Award for his work with the University of Michigan’s “ReConnect/ReCollect: Reparative Connections to Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan” Project. The project convened a diverse group of UM faculty, librarians, archivists, curators, collections managers, students, and members of the Filipino and Filipino American community. Other MSP-affiliated contributors to the project included Dr. Kerstin Barndt (MSP Director 2020-23), alumni Emily Na (MSP21), and student Sony Prosper (MSP21).
Kudos to… Joe Cialdella (MSP09) and some of his colleagues at the Rackham Graduate School published an article about Rackham’s internship program in the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement. The article is titled “Doctoral Internships as Pathways for Professional Growth and Publicly Engaged Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences.”
Kudos to… Kristine Ronan (MSP09) recently began a position as the Program Manager for the World Faiths Initiative at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Kristine coordinates between departments on anything associated with collection objects related to faith and spirituality.
Kudos to…. Abigail Celis (MSP11) was a collaborator in creating a new exhibition this fall. Abi is an assistant professor in Art History and Museum Studies at the Université de Montréal, with a background in cultural studies. She co-created The Catalogue of Speculative Translations Act II: Fugitivities at the Galerie de l’Université de Montréal. The Catalogue creates moments of flight out of the architecture of colonial capture. Through visual translations and archival fragmentations, the exhibition interrupts museological apparatuses that seize human lives and material bodies through processes of naming, knowing and extraction. Act II: Fugitivities responds to objects of France’s colonial empire held by Marseille’s Museum of African, Oceanian, and Amerindian Art.
Kudos to…. Marisa Szpytman (MSP12) who, after 11 years at the Detroit Institute of Arts, accepted a new position as the Senior Registrar for Collections at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago this past Fall.
Kudos to… Caroline Braden (MSP13) wrote an article for AAM’s Museum magazine called “Growing a Popular Program.” The article is about The Henry Ford Museum’s sensory-friendly program for teens and adults. Caroline also founded an alliance, Michigan Alliance for Cultural Accessibility (MACA), that received a John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD) Emerging Leader Award. The award was received at the LEAD Conference in late August.
Kudos to… Rachel Chamberlain (MSP14) completed her Ed.D. in Executive Higher Administration at Boston College this past May. Her dissertation focused on Academic Art Museums in the United States and factors that constrain or support DEIAB in its practices. Rachel was promoted to Assistant Director of Learning, Community Engagement & Digital Initiatives at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College. This Fall, she began teaching a class at Boston College, “Contemporary Issues in Art Museums.” In the Spring, she will teach “Decolonizing Art Museums.”
Kudos to… Félix Zamora-Gómez (MSP16) began his role last Fall as Program Coordinator for Engagement at the University of Michigan Arts Initiative. In December, the show La Raza Art and Media Collective 1975 – Today opened at UMMA. Felix and another MSP alumni, David Choberka (MSP03) co-curated the exhibit.
Kudos to… Stephanie (Brown) Fleming (MSP17) who was a Fulbright semi-finalist this year. She wrote an article about her recent art exhibition in Los Angeles on the Black Art in America website. Stephanie currently has an interactive art installation, Contested Ground, on display in the Emory Health Science Library. She was just accepted into the Essere Writer & Artist Residency in Italy for Fall 2026. Stephanie is wrapping up the first season of her video podcasts for artists seeking to create sustainable art careers, IN BTWN ARTIST. Artwork created by Stephanie can be purchased here.
Kudos to… Eimeel Castillo (MSP18) was awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to pursue an Erasmus Mundus International Joint Master in Education in Museums and Heritage. Eimeel’s studies begin at the University of Glasgow in September, and the award will allow her to pursue courses at three different European universities.
Kudos to… Alexandria Rayburn (MSP19) recently defended her dissertation and began a position as Assistant Professor in the library science program at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
Kudos to… Richard Bachmann’s (MSP20) ongoing work with the Woodbridge Community is formally launching the Woodbridge Digital Archive this month. The Woodbridge Oral History Archive project is a collaboration of Woodbridge Neighborhood Development, the Detroit Historical Society, and former and current residents of Woodbridge.
Kudos to… Heidi Hilliker (MSP20) who visited the Sohag National Museum in Sohag, Egypt, this past winter to see the fully installed exhibition that she and Janet Richards (Kelsey museum curator and Abydos Middle Cemetery (AMC) project director) had worked on. Designed, conserved, and curated by AMC Project participants and staff from the Kelsey and Sohag museums, “The Governor of Upper Egypt Weni the Elder and the Origins of the Osiris Festival” displays objects excavated at the AMC during the mid-19th century together with those uncovered by the Michigan team since 1999. While in Egypt, Heidi continued her thesis research on the social contexts of textile production through visits to contemporary weaving shops in Saqqara, Luxor, and Akhmim, and her study of textile collections held in Egyptian museums and institutes.
Kudos to… Estrella Salgado (MSP21) who has been offered a prestigious 2025-26 J. Paul Getty Trust Internship. As a graduate intern in the President’s Office, Estrella will be working on strategic initiatives across the institution and, especially, with the VX Initiative and the Getty Global Forum. Estrella, in addition to her work at the Getty, is looking forward to exploring and getting to know Los Angeles.
Kudos to… Pelle Tracey (MSP21) recently began a position as an Assistant Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington.
Kudos to… Hannah Edwards (MSP22) and her work with the Digital Study of Kelsey Objects (DiSKO). Launched in August 2024, DiSKO is a multiyear initiative developed by a dynamic team of educators, digital data specialists, and students at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Their invaluable work in making select artifacts accessible online as 3-D models will benefit the Kelsey—as well as students, scholars, and the public—now and into the future. Hannah’s research interests center on Macedonian identity and culture in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. She joined the project team in the winter of 2024, first writing object descriptions for the DiSKO website before going on to learn 3-D modeling techniques and software programs like Agisoft Metashape and Blender.
Kudos to… Ekaterina Olson Shipyatsky (MSP22) who has been named a UM Curatorial Assistant for Art in Public Spaces. Katya will assist with curatorial research on the UM public art collection, the Art in Residence Halls program, and a number of other duties as the Arts Initiative works to lay the foundation for this new program.
Kudos to… Irma Guzman (MSP23) is a Research Project Manager for the 1968-1969 Detroit Black Power Murals Research Project. This project focuses on community engagement efforts in Detroit, archival research, and oral histories, and the work will culminate in a public history website. From this work, Irma is also supporting the nomination of stained glass windows to the Michigan Stained Glass Census on behalf of Grace Episcopal Church. The church contains stained glass windows by the Douglas Phillips Studio, the only known Black stained glass artist to have been working in the US from the 1950s-1970s. An extension of this work is also an evolving collaboration with Dr. Kelli Morgan – Black Artists Archive Founder, the City of Detroit Historical Advisory Board, and Eastern Market Corporation – to preserve and reactivate a Black Arts Mural from 1979 that was painted in an Elementary School by multiple leading artists of the Black Arts Movement. Irma is also a co-founder for Detroit VOCES Collective working on an oral history project to document and celebrate the histories, legacies and contributions of Latinos in Detroit. Irma also completed the research and marker text for a State of Michigan Historical Marker that will be finalized and installed later this year for Dr. Lucile Cruz Gajec, a critical community organizer in Detroit’s Mexican/Latino community and founder of Museo Indigenista- Museum of Indohispanic History & Culture.
Kudos to… Briana Kemmerling (MSP23) recently began a new position as NAGPRA Assistant Cataloger at The Henry Ford.
