New ECRN and DRN Co-Convenors Appointed

The Paul Mellon Centre is delighted to announce the appointment of Claudia Di Tosto and Lauren Houlton as Co-Convenors of the Doctoral Researchers Network, and Alexandra Gushurst-Moore and Nick Mols to Co-Convene the Early Career Researchers Network.

Claudia Di Tosto is an AHRC-funded Midlands4Cities PhD student at the University of Warwick, co-supervised by the PMC. She is researching the recent history of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale through the lenses of global and national art histories, exhibition history and postcolonial theory to explore the Pavilion as a site of national self-definition and redefinition.

Lauren Houlton is a Techne-funded doctoral researcher based at the University of Westminster. Her project, “Differentiated Publics: A Feminist Study of Collaboration in Artist Filmmaking”, aims to develop a feminist theoretical framework for collaboration through case studies by Petra Bauer, Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Rehana Zaman, that have been developed with community, activist and not-for-profit groups.

Claudia and Lauren will continue to nurture and support the DRN, continuing the excellent work of Susuana Aomoah and Caitlin Doley, who have convened the network since summer 2021.

Alongside her role as Co-Convenor of the ECRN, Alexandra Gushurst-Moore is the Research Projects Coordinator of the Fitzwilliam Museum and Coordinator of Cambridge Visual Culture. Her doctoral thesis was entitled “The Making of Modern Fantasy in the Visual Arts of England, ca. 1850–1920”, and was supervised by Elizabeth Prettejohn at the University of York.

Nick Mols is an architectural historian working as a Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture. His research bridges creative histories and digital humanities, unveiling relationships between early modern architecture, science and visual culture with reference to the digital turn. His PhD at the University of Edinburgh focused on the reception of Sebastiano Serlio’s treatises in Britain between 1600–1750.

Alexandra and Nick will continue the excellent work of Stacey Clapperton and Christie Slobogin to develop and sustain the ECRN.

Both the Doctoral Researchers Network and Early Career Researchers Network are free to join and open to enrollment: Fill out this form if you are currently working towards a doctorate, or this form if you have received your doctorate within the past five years.