Sarah Molina (September 2023-June 2024)
The Poetics of Space: How Carpets Shaped the Safavid World
Sarah Molina is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the history of art and architecture at Harvard University. Her dissertation explores how Safavid carpets mediated experiences of space in the early modern Islamic world. This study involves not only reconstituting the architectural contexts of these carpets but also examining how such objects actively produced new spaces. Molina has held various positions and fellowships at museums, including the Harvard Art Museums, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
Margaret Squires (September 2022-June 2023)
Crafting Splendour: Safavid Carpets in Architectural Context
Margaret Squires is currently an Associate Lecturer and an advanced PhD Candidate at The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, UK, where she is supervised by Professor Sussan Babaie and Professor Walter B. Denny, of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her dissertation focuses on the relationship between carpet design and architecture in the Safavid period in Iran (1502–1722). Prior to starting her PhD, she was Curatorial Assistant for Art of the Islamic Worlds at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Dr. Fatima Kadić (September 2019-June 2020)
The Traditional Prayer Rug as an Artistic Expression of the Islamic Cosmological Symbols
Dr. Kadić works as head librarian at the library of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Sarajevo. She obtained two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Sarajevo, one in Islamic studies and the second in Persian and Turkish languages and literature. Her PhD, supervised by Professor Walter B. Denny, was on the Islamic Prayer rug and its cosmological iconography.