Three NEH Grants Awarded to Cotsen Faculty

Core faculty of the Cotsen Institute have been awarded three grants totaling more than $500,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). 

Project Director Ellen Pearlstein received $349,826 for the project “Embedding Sustainability in Cultural Heritage Conservation Education” in the NEH category of Research and Development. The project is designed to compile and study data on methods for integrating sustainability into conservation programs as part of a multi-year project to build theoretical frameworks into pedagogical models. Pearlstein is a professor in the Department of Information Studies and the UCLA/Getty Conservation Program.

Willeke Wendrich and Min Li are co-project directors of “Creating an Interdepartmental Certificate in Cultural Heritage Research, Stewardship, and Restitution.” The NEH grant for $124,688 was awarded in the category of Humanities Initiatives at Colleges and Universities. This one-year project is to design and implement a graduate certificate program in cultural heritage studies. Wendrich is professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and the director of the Cotsen Institute. Min Li is associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and a core faculty member of the Cotsen Institute.

Meredith Cohen has received $60,000 for her project “The Lady Chapel as a Model for Visualizations of Digital 3D Historical Reconstructions” in the category of NEH-Mellon Fellowships for Digital Publication The project is for research and data visualization resulting in a website exploring three-dimensional digital reconstructions of the Lady Chapel of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, France. Cohen is associate professor in the Department of Art History and a core faculty member of the Cotsen Institute.

In discussing these grants, NEH chair Shelly Love said that “the range, diversity, and creativity of these new projects speak to the wealth of humanities ideas and deep engagement of humanities practitioners across our country.”