Amber McAlister, PhD, specializes in Italian Renaissance art history. Dr. McAlister's research trips to Italy have been supported by a Fulbright Fellowship and grants from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and Renaissance Society of America. She has presented at national conferences, including the annual meetings of the College Art Association and the Renaissance Society of America. Publications include an essay in The Historian's Eye on echoes of Dante's Divine Comedy in fifteenth-century frescoes in the Chiostro Verde at Santa Maria Novella, catalog entries on Italian paintings and drawings, and most recently in Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy. Dr. McAlister’s current research explores divine presence and personal experience at Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and is supported by an award from the Central Research Development Fund at the University of Pittsburgh. As an undergraduate Dr. McAlister studied abroad in Paris, France, which ignited her love of travel and seeing art in person. She is happy to share these experiences with students in the classroom and in study abroad opportunities. She will be co-leading a trip to Florence, Italy, in May 2016, and is developing spring break trips to Paris and London so students can see in person the art they study in her courses. Dr. McAlister is the advisor to the Visual Arts Society, and a former president of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.
