Curators

Sharon Sultana

Senior Curator, National Museum of Archaeology, Heritage Malta

As Senior Curator of the National Museum of Archaeology, Sharon Sultana is currently working on expanding the permanent display of the museum. In the past two years she has project managed the opening of the Bronze Age and Phoenician Halls and is presently working on the subsequent Punic, Roman, Byzantine and Medieval period halls.  She graduated Bachelors of Arts in Archaeology in 1995, and started working in the museum immediately afterwards.  The dissertation of her Masters in Cultural Heritage Management focused on ‘Museums and Audiences – Bridging gaps ’ since her aim is to render the National Museum of Archaeology as fully accessible as possible, both physically and intellectually. She has authored and co-authored a number of publications including The National Museum of Archaeology – The Neolithic Period (2006) and ‘Presenting the Bronze Age to the Public at the National Museum of Archaeology’, in Site, Artefacts and Landscape: Prehistoric Borg in-Nadur, Malta (2011).

Jennifer Y. Chi

Exhibitions Director and Chief Curator, ISAW; Exhibition Co-curator

Jennifer Y. Chi, who joined ISAW in 2007, established and leads the Institute’s exhibition program. Dr. Chi was curator of ISAW’s inaugural exhibition, Wine, Worship, and Sacrifice: The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani (2008); co-curator of The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley 5000–3500 BC (2009); and co-editor of the accompanying catalogues for both. A specialist in Roman imperial sculpture, she was a fellow of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1999–2000. She also organized nationally touring exhibitions in her previous position as curator of the White-Levy Collection. An area of special interest is ancient costume and its social and political implications as represented in art. She has recently completed chapters on Greek, Roman, and Etruscan costume for the Encyclopedia of World Costume (2008), co-authored with Larissa Bonfante. Dr. Chi is currently organizing future exhibitions for ISAW, including one devoted to the Chalcolithic period in the area of present-day Israel and Jordan. She is also a member of the sculpture publication team at the renowned classical site of Aphrodisias, in Turkey.

Jennifer Chi holds a Master of Studies from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

Peter D. De Staebler

Assistant Curator, ISAW

Peter D. De Staebler has been Assistant Curator at ISAW since 2011. He is a field archaeologist with 20 years of experience in Greece, Italy and Turkey, including 14 years at the NYU excavations at Aphrodisias, where he is also assistant director of the Aphrodisias Regional Survey Project. Dr. De Staebler’s primary research interest is architecture and urban development, and he is especially interested in tracking the influence of disparate cultural developments through the distribution of related trends.

Peter D. De Staebler holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU.