Carolyn Lucarelli

  • Manager, Center for Virtual/Material Studies
  • Visual Resources

  • Data and Image Archiving

215 Borland Building

Carolyn Lucarelli

Biography

Carolyn Lucarelli manages the Center for Virtual/Material Studies (formerly the Visual Resources Centre) in the Department of Art History. Before coming to Penn State, she was assistant museum librarian in the Photograph and Slide Library at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and assistant curator of visual resources in the Department of Art History at Dartmouth College. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Columbia University and an M.A. in Art History from Dartmouth College. Her M.A. thesis was titled “Between Matter and Spirit: The Art of Betye Saar.”

Lucarelli is an active member of the Visual Resources Association (VRA), and has served in a variety of roles over the years, including VRA Bylaws Review Committee member, chair of the VRA Nominating Committee, VRA Education Committee member, VRAF (Visual Resources Association Foundation) Board of Directors, VRAF Internship Award Selection Committee member, curriculum specialist for the ARLIS/NA-VRA Summer Educational Institute (SEI), and most recently, co-chair of the VRA Identity Task Force. She received two VRA Travel Awards in 2000 and 2004 and was the recipient of a 2005 Penn State College of Arts and Architecture Staff Award for Outstanding Service.

Lucarelli was the recipient of the 2022 VRA Project Grant and the College of Arts and Architecture’s Rusinko Kakos Student Success Grant in 2023, both of which supported the collaborative project with the School of Theatre Fashion Archive to create a publicly accessible digital inventory of the archive.