Ph.D., New York Univ.
M.A., New York Univ.
Ellen Kenney is an independent scholar based in the U.S. She recently retired from the position of Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the American University in Cairo (AUC), where she taught for thirteen years. Before joining AUC, she was employed as a researcher with the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum, working on the reinstallation of that department’s collection that opened in 2012. Kenney received her Ph.D. from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and is the author of Power and Patronage in Medieval Syria: The Architecture and Urban Works of Tankiz al-Nasiri (2009). Her research interests include the material culture of the Mamluks, Rasulid Yemen, and medieval Mediterranean exchange. She was awarded a scholarship with the Getty-sponsored workshop series, “Mediterranean Palimpsests – Connecting the Art and Architectural Histories of Medieval and Early Modern Cities,” which ran from 2018 to 2022. She is currently working on a book project entitled, A City in Objects: Medieval Damascus and Material Culture.