Ava Katarina Tabatabai Hess: Ph.D. Student, UCLA Department of Art History (M.Sc. Visual, Material & Museum Anthropology, University of Oxford, 2014; B.A. Middle Eastern, South Asian & African Studies, Columbia University, 2012). Current research: South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), narrative Islamic art, histories of trans-Saharan connectivity, decolonial theory, critical museum practices.

Prior to joining UCLA and serving as Ufahamu's arts editor, I was a 2018 Académie Fellow at the RAW Material Company in Dakar, Senegal and held curatorial and research-based positions at institutions including the International Center of Photography, the Newark Museum (Arts of Global Africa department), and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.