Prestigious program champions interdisciplinary research, fresh inquiries into the rich landscape of American art
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BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art announced today the 2025-2026 cohort of the Tyson Scholars of American Art Program. The residential research and writing-focused fellowship for interdisciplinary scholars has been expanding the boundaries of investigation into American art since its inception in 2012. Through a $5 million commitment from the Tyson Family Foundation and Tyson Foods, Inc., the Tyson Scholars Program has supported the work of more than 80 scholars, attracting academic professionals in a variety of disciplines nationally and internationally who have worked on books, articles, and exhibition projects while in residence.
“We are thrilled to welcome the 14th class of distinguished fellows for the 2025-2026 academic year,” said Mindy Besaw, director of research, fellowships, and university partnerships for Crystal Bridges and the Momentary. “We are excited to see the innovative projects and collaborations that will emerge from their residency here. They will join a robust group of scholars in Northwest Arkansas, and in turn, the resources of the region will no doubt influence their projects.”
The Tyson Scholars Program welcomes scholars focused on visual art, architecture, craft, visual and material culture, performance art, or new media. The program also supports projects that approach US art transregionally and looking at the broader geographical context of the Americas, especially Latinx and Indigenous art. Crystal Bridges invites anyone holding or pursuing a terminal degree in their field to apply. The program offers fellowships proportionate to experience, including pre-doctoral (or equivalent), post-graduate, and senior scholars.
Fellowships are residential and support full-time writing and research for terms that range from six weeks to nine months. Scholars are provided workspace in the curatorial wing of the Crystal Bridges Library and while in residence, Tyson Scholars have access to the art and library collections of Crystal Bridges, as well as the library and archives at the University of Arkansas in nearby Fayetteville. During their residency, Tyson Scholars intersect meaningfully with the dynamic arts ecosystem in Northwest Arkansas.
“As a Tyson Scholar, I enjoyed the chance to work in such an amazing collection of American art and such a great library with everything at my fingertips,” said Jennifer Marshall, professor of American art at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and 2024-2025 Tyson Scholar for Graduate Mentorship and Collaborative Initiatives. “I also loved working with the Crystal Bridges curatorial team and other Tyson Scholars in residency who were so keen to think creatively and capaciously about what art history could be. I think having the kind of human resources of other scholars and the staff at Crystal Bridges has been truly inspirational and has transformed how I’m thinking about my work.”
The 2025-2026 cohort begins its residency in September 2025. Applications for the 2026-2027 cohort open on October 6, 2025.
The 2025-2026 Tyson Scholars residency cohort includes:
- Emily Beeber
- Emily Beeber is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of Delaware. Her dissertation, “Visualizing Jewishness in the Atlantic World, 1715-1830,” examines the relationship between portraiture and Jewish identity within this context. Emily has held curatorial internships at institutions including the National Gallery of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art, and she participated in the Summer Institute at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts. Her dissertation research has been supported by the Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware and the American Jewish Historical Society.
- Charmaine Branch
- Charmaine Branch is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art & Archaeology at Princeton University, researching modern and contemporary art of the African Diaspora. Her dissertation considers Black women artists’ contributions to Black intellectual histories of collecting and archiving in the United States. Branch holds an M.A. in Modern Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies from Columbia University and a B.A. in Art History from Vassar College. Before joining the department, she worked as a Curatorial Fellow at The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art, where she contributed to several exhibitions and permanent collection projects.
- Ashley Cope
- Ashley Cope is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland where she studies American art and visual culture with Dr. Tess Korobkin. Ashley received her BA in Art History and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota before serving as the 2019-2020 Gerry and Lisa O’Brien Curatorial Fellow at the Weisman Art Museum where she curated Locally Grown: Documentary Photography of Minnesota Communities. Ashley received her MA from the University of Maryland in 2022 and is currently writing a dissertation on gender nonconformity and non-binary form in interwar American art.
- Tanya Sheehan
- Tanya Sheehan is Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art at Colby College; Chair of the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Colby; and Director of Academic and Scholarly Engagement at the Lunder Institute for American Art at the Colby College Museum of Art. From 2015 to 2025, she served as executive editor of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art Journal. Dr. Sheehan authored Doctored: The Medicine of Photography in Nineteenth-Century America (2011) and Study in Black and White: Photography, Race, Humor (2018), in addition to editing six books, most recently Modernism, Art, Therapy (2024, with Suzanne Hudson).
- Monica Steinberg
- Monica Steinberg is an Assistant Professor at The University of Hong Kong. Her research considers the intersection of art, fictional attribution, humor, and law. Recent publications include articles in American Art Journal, Art History, Art Journal, Grey Room, and Crime, Media, Culture. Dr. Steinberg’s book, Lives of the Imaginary Artists in Cold War California, is forthcoming with the University of Chicago Press (2025); it considers the pseudonymously attributed artworks, (auto)biografictions, and humorous events realized by a cadre of practitioners (both actual and imaginary) playfully frustrating the telling of history itself.
- Natalie Zhang
- Natalie Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her dissertation reexamines “quotidian” spaces in interwar Los Angeles’s Chinatowns and Little Tokyo, framing them as significant yet overlooked sites of Asian American cultural production within a transnational creative network. Drawing on the idiosyncratic visual material born from these environments, she explores how Asian American artists negotiated their positionality within the entangled racial and visual economies of the period. Natalie holds an M.A. in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in Art History and Chinese Studies from Willamette University.
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About Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
The mission of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is to welcome all to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature. Since opening in 2011, the museum has welcomed more than 14 million visitors across its spaces, with no cost for admission. Crystal Bridges was founded in 2005 as a non-profit charitable organization by arts patron and philanthropist, Alice Walton. The collection spans five centuries of American masterworks from early American to current day and is enhanced by temporary exhibitions. The museum is nestled on 134 acres of Ozark landscape and was designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie. A rare Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house was preserved and relocated to the museum grounds in 2015. Home of the prestigious Don Tyson Prize for the Advancement of American Art and Tyson Scholars of American Art Program, Crystal Bridges offers public programs including lectures, performances, classes, and teacher development opportunities. Some 478,375 school children have participated in the Willard and Pat Walker School Visit program, which provides educational experiences for school groups at no cost to the schools. Additional museum amenities include a restaurant, gift store, library, and five miles of art and walking trails. In February 2020, the museum opened the Momentary in Downtown Bentonville (507 SE E Street), conceived as a platform for the art, food, and music of our time. In 2026, Crystal Bridges will complete a 114,000 square foot expansion that will allow the museum to expand access for all. For more information, visit CrystalBridges.org. The museum is located at 600 Museum Way, Bentonville, Arkansas 72712.
About the Tyson Family Foundation
Established in 1970, the Tyson Family Foundation supports efforts for education, health, arts and culture, youth programs, and a scholarship program for Tyson Foods employees and their families. The foundation has endowed and supported local, regional, and national organizations committed to furthering access to knowledge, promoting creativity, and supporting communities. President Olivia Tyson currently leads the Foundation.
Media Contact
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