Great Hall Exhibition Series Spring 2025

Hala Hachem

Modern & Contemporary Art of the Americas and the Middle East

Hala Hachem is a first-year M.A. student at the Institute of Fine Arts. Her scholarly interests are the art of the Americas and the Middle East, with her current research focusing on their intersections in Mexico and Lebanon. Hala has held positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Gagosian, and Pérez Art Museum Miami. At the Institute, she is involved with the 2024-2025 iteration of the IFA-Frick Symposium. She received her B.A. in Art History, B.S. in Chemistry, and a minor in Classical Studies from the University of Florida.

Kaleha Kegode

Arts & Archeology of Africa and the Middle East

Kaleha Kegode is a first-year M.A. student at the Institute of the Fine Arts. Her research focuses on the arts of premodern Africa and the Middle East. She is particularly interested in how material histories, like jewelry and textiles, can provide refreshed insight into women’s experiences across Africa and the African Diaspora. She has participated in archeological excavations at Aphrodisias, Turkey. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in International Area Studies, with a concentration in Africa and the Middle East.

Angelina Medina

Modern & Contemporary Art of the Americas

Angelina Medina is a second-year M.A. student at the Institute of Fine Arts. She was one of the co-curators of the 2024 Duke House Exhibition, Magali Lara: Interior Landscapes. Before pursuing her Master’s at the Institute, she graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Art History & Arts Administration and Spanish & French Language Studies from Macaulay Honors College. She has held positions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Jewish Museum, the Acadian Museum of the University of Moncton, the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Currently, she is the Gallery Manager at Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary.

Marisa Sanquini

Ancient Egyptian and Mediterranean Arts & Archeology

Marisa Sanquini is a first-year M.A. student at the Institute of Fine Arts. Her research focuses on bridging archaeological and anthropological practices with art history, with special interests in cross-cultural interactions of the ancient world and depictions of the female form. She was a North American Archaeology intern at the American Museum of Natural History and has participated in archaeological excavations, including those in New York, France, and Greece. She has also presented at the International Conference on Foreign Languages, Communication and Culture for her paper on language barriers in undergraduate academic settings.

Christina Shen

Modern and Contemporary Art

Christina Shen is a second-year M.A. student at the Institute of Fine Arts, concentrating on modern and contemporary art, with particular attention to artists of Asian descent. She has held positions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, M+ Museum, and the de Young Museum. Christina received her B.A. with honors in Art History from Stanford University, where she was a Hume Honors Fellow.

Wei Huang

Late Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Century European Art & Queer Studies

Wei Huang is a second-year M.A. student at the Institute of Fine Arts. He received his Bachelor of Business Administration in finance from National Taiwan University and is currently a Contemporary Art Partners intern assisting with provenance research and market analysis of post-war American art.