In that role, Dr. Um will oversee the Research and Knowledge Creation division, which includes the celebrated Getty Scholars Program, research projects and academic outreach, the Getty Provenance Index, digital art history, and the Getty Vocabularies.
“We are delighted to welcome such a distinguished scholar and administrator to the GRI,” said Mary Miller, director of the GRI. “Nancy’s commitment to public education and her long track record in digital scholarship and DEAI work will be an enormous addition to the institute.”
Dr. Um is currently professor of art history and associate dean for faculty development and inclusion, Harpur College, Binghamton University (SUNY). She earned her B.A. from Wellesley College and her PhD from UCLA. She will take up her post at the GRI in July 2022.
In her research, Dr. Um explores the history of art, architecture, and material culture in the Islamic world, with a focus on the merchant communities of the Arabian Peninsula and the salient ties that they sustained across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, along maritime routes that stretched to east Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and the coasts of China and Japan.
She is the author of two books, The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port (University of Washington Press, 2009) and Shipped but not Sold: Material Culture and the Social Protocols of Trade during Yemen’s Age of Coffee (University of Hawai’i Press, 2017), in addition to articles that have appeared in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, African Arts, Northeast African Studies, Journal of Early Modern History, Genre, Art History, Getty Research Journal, West 86th, Manuscript Studies, and caa.reviews.
“Nancy’s research on art and exchange across the Indian Ocean will bring a new area into the GRI’s strong and increasingly global research agenda,” commented Andrew Perchuk, GRI deputy director. “I look forward to working with her on our residential scholars program, research projects, and digital initiatives.”
Dr. Um has received fellowships and grants from the Fulbright program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Getty Foundation, and the American Institute for Yemeni Studies. She was Reviews Editor of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (2011–14) and The Art Bulletin (2015–18), and currently serves on the editorial board of Journal18: A Journal of Eighteenth-Century Art and Culture and the academic advisory board of Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Asian Interactions. At Binghamton University, Dr. Um has chaired the department of art history, co-directed an interdisciplinary program in Middle East and North Africa Studies, and co-organized the Digital Humanities Research Institute. As associate dean for faculty development and inclusion in Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, she has been involved in the launch of two cluster hire programs, the approval of a new interdisciplinary program in Digital and Data Studies, and a slate of faculty development and retention initiatives.
“The GRI plays a key role in sustaining the robust future of art history, by spearheading, facilitating, and supporting expansive, inclusive, and forward-looking approaches to the discipline,” said Dr. Um. “I am delighted for the opportunity to play a part in shaping and implementing the GRI’s innovative research programs and digital initiatives. I am particularly looking forward to joining a lively, engaged, collaborative, and generative research environment and learning from my new GRI colleagues.”
An alumna of the Getty Scholar Year “Connecting Seas” (2013–14), with strong ties to Los Angeles, Dr. Um looks forward to joining the GRI staff and returning to Southern California with her family.