Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank

Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank (she/her) is a co-founder and The Captain of ARTSQ. She earned an MA and PhD in the history of art from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was previously associate professor of art history at Pepperdine University until she resigned to pursue new pathways to make art history more accessible and fun for everyone. She was also an assistant professor at Brooklyn College (CUNY) and Graduate Century (also CUNY), and has taught at the University of Oregon, UCLA, and California State University, Long Beach.

Formerly, Lauren was Dean of Content and Strategy at Smarthistory. Her research and publications primarily focus on the art and history of Spain and Latin America between 1400 and 1800, with special attention to death, dying, and the afterlife; images made by and for women; and the human body and holy body parts. She is also interested in pedagogy, digital art history, and the digital humanities.

She has written in a variety of journals and forums, and published the book Holy Organ or Unholy Idol: The Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Art, Religion, and Politics in New Spain (Brill, 2018). She also co-edited and contributed to two other books with Dr. Heather Graham, Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas (Brill, 2018) and Emotions, Art, and Christianity in the Transatlantic World, 1450–1800 (Brill, 2021). She has also consulted with television shows and museums to develop and refine their content. Beyond these, she launched and edited a successful art history textbook that was a collaboration with more than 50 other art historians. She is also the author of a forthcoming non-fiction series about art history at Disneyland and a middle-grade fiction series. Learn more about Lauren.