PhD alum Dasol Kim received the 2024-25 John W. Gardner Award for best dissertation in the Humanities for her dissertation "Muslim, Sub-Saharan African, and Native American Bodies as European Furnishings, 1500-1700.”
Nominations were submitted by departments, and the winning dissertation is selected by a faculty committee. The Gardner Award comes with a certificate and a financial award of $1,000.
In her dissertation, Dasol investigates the European production and reception of metalwork that depicts non-Christians and non-Europeans. She studies small bronze, swords, candlesticks and lamps, and silver cups made in German-speaking regions and Italy between 1500 and 1700.
Dasol specializes in Renaissance and Baroque European decorative arts and prints with a transnational focus. She previously studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin as an exchange student before receiving her PhD at Rice in 2024, and she has conducted object research in many museums in Europe and the US.
She currently serves as the Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Early Modern art history at Grinnell College.