Katie Elizabeth Apsey

Biography

Katie covers the administrative and program management needs of the Institute for Research in the Humanities (IRH) and serves as assistant to the IRH Director while continuing to research and write on transdisciplinary performance art. She received her PhD in Art History from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and holds a Master’s degree in First Nations/Indigenous Art History and Museum Studies from Concordia University in Montréal. Her academic research focuses on contemporary Native and Indigenous art, dance history, performance studies, relational art, and anticolonial museum methodologies. Katie has held positions as Programs and Operations Assistant for the Center for Design and Material Culture in the School of Human Ecology, Project Assistant for IRH, and as Manager of Programs for the College Art Association in New York. She comes to IRH from the museum world, having spent extensive time working at the Brooklyn Museum as a curatorial assistant for the Asian, African, Oceanic & Islamic Art Collections Division, an adult programs education fellow, and part of the research team that developed the museum’s award-winning “ASK” app. Her public humanities training includes internships, research fellowships, and workshops at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology at Harvard University, The Newberry Library, The Center for Curatorial Leadership, The Heritage Center at Wazí Aháŋhaŋ Oyáŋke, and the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. She works as a restoration liaison for Two Worlds Arts in Brooklyn, NY and is an academic staff affiliate with UW–Madison’s Center for Visual Culture and Performance Studies. Katie is also a practicing dancer and capoeirista, so appreciates any invitation to a roda.