Sarah Molina (September 2023-June 2024, Current Fellow)
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’s research has been supported by Harvard University’s Traveling and Merit Term-Time Fellowship programs, the Aga Khan Program in Islamic Art & Architecture, the American Institute of Iranian Studies, and the American Research Institute in Türkiye. She also has an interest in the digital humanities—she currently leads an initiative with the Textile Society of America to create an inclusive and diverse textile glossary. 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. Her work in museums has been supported by fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon, Samuel H. Kress, and National Science Foundations. She has helped to organize major exhibitions on diverse subjects including Safavid carpets, contemporary photography, and Central Asian jewelry.
Margaret Squires (September 2022-June 2023)
Margaret Squires is 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.
Anna Beselin (September 2020-June 2021) (declined)
Dr. Fatima Kadić-Žutić (September 2019-June 2020)
Dr. Kadić-Žutić works as head librarian at the library of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Sarajevo. Besides a Diploma in Librarianship, 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. She defended her MA and PhD dissertations at the University of Sarajevo; her MA dealt with the tree of life and bird motifs on Bosnian kilim and embroidery, whereas her PhD, supervised by Professor Walter B. Denny, was on the Islamic Prayer rug and its cosmological iconography. She has published papers in Bosnian and international scholarly journals and has presented papers at Bosnian and international conferences in the fields of History of Islamic Culture and Civilization, History of Islamic Art, Islamic Textiles and Carpets, Islamic Prayer Rugs and History of the Islamic Printed Book.
Fellowship Talk – Motifs of Islamic Cosmology on the Prayer Rug – Sajjada