LOS ANGELES.- The Getty Research Institute announced the appointment of Joanne Pillsbury to the position of Associate Director of Scholarly Programs.

A noted art historian, Dr. Pillsbury will oversee the GRI’s research departments and activities, including the Scholars Program, which brings scholars, artists, and other cultural figures from around the world to work in residence at the GRI; the Getty Research Journal, a peer-reviewed annual publication that showcases the remarkable original research underway at the Getty; and the GRI’s Research Projects and Programs, spearheading and managing research projects and related programming based on the GRI’s Special Collections.

Dr. Pillsbury comes to the Getty from Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., a research institute of Harvard University with a research library and collections dedicated to Byzantine, Garden and Landscape, and Pre-Columbian studies. During her six years as Director of Pre-Columbian studies, Dr. Pillsbury oversaw the fellowship program, organized a series of scholarly conferences and public lectures, and managed a robust publications program. She also continued to pursue research and writing on Andean art, her field of expertise. She served as editor for the three-volume Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530–1900 (2008, Spanish edition in 2013), an essential reference work with contributions by 122 international scholars.

Prior to Dumbarton Oaks, Dr. Pillsbury was Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies in the Department of Art History & Archaeology at University of Maryland from 2002 to 2005. Between 1991 and 2002, she held a lectureship in the Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the University of East Anglia and from 1995 to 1999 was Assistant Dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art.

"In Joanne Pillsbury, the GRI is gaining an outstanding and internationally renowned researcher. Through her expertise in Pre-Columbian art history and archaeology, she will be able to make an important contribution to the GRI's efforts to support research on the arts of the Americas as well as cross-cultural encounters," said Thomas Gaehtgens, director of the Getty Research Institute.