Transforming the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art Journal

Laura Meader, Colby News, November 4, 2025

Tanya Sheehan, the Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art, recently finished 10 years as executive editor of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art Journal. The journal is the longest-running scholarly periodical dedicated to the history of art in relation to the United States, and Sheehan has been the driving force behind its transformation into a first-rank research periodical.

Sheehan, who joined Colby’s faculty in 2013, works at the intersection of American art history and critical medical humanities. She is also chair of Colby’s Humanities Division and its Department of Science, Technology, and Society, and she is director of academic and scholarly engagement at the Lunder Institute for American Art.