Brandie Ratliff, Director
Brandie Ratliff is an art historian specializing in the arts of the Byzantine sphere. Her primary fields of interest are textiles, pilgrimage, cultural interaction in the medieval Mediterranean, the history of collecting, and the presentation of cultural heritage to a public audience. Before joining the Mary Jaharis Center, she worked in the Department of the Medieval Art and The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, first as an intern and then as a Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow. From 2006, she was Research Associate for Byzantine Art. During her time at the Met, she worked on several exhibitions (Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), Lions, Dragons, and Other Beasts—Vessels for Church and Table: Aquamanilia of the Middle Ages, and Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition), co-edited the Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition exhibition catalogue with Helen C. Evans, coordinated the Medieval Department’s study of the Met’s collection of textiles from Byzantine Egypt, curated six exhibitions drawn from the textile collection, and developed the Kharga Oasis Digital Archive project. Her graduate work in Byzantine Art was completed at Columbia University, where her research was supported through grants from Columbia University, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC), and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.