Kate Heller

Kate Heller is a first-year doctoral student in the History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art at MIT. She is broadly interested in decorative arts and design of the long eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Prior to MIT, Kate was the Research Associate of Applied Arts of Europe at the Art Institute of Chicago (2019-2023) where she assisted with the acquisition, exhibition, display, research and interpretation of European ceramics, glass, metalwork, and furniture. While at the AIC, she presented her research at the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association and the Society of Architectural Historians annual conferences, and was awarded an Association of Art Museum Curators Conference Fellowship in 2022. Previously, she completed curatorial fellowships at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Weisman Art Museum, and contributed to collections publications and exhibitions at those institutions. Kate holds a B.A. in Art History and Scandinavian Languages and Literature from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (2015) and a M.A. in Art History and Museum Studies from Case Western Reserve University (2019).