ISAW's Rachel Herschman to Lead the Exhibitions and Publications Program at Yale’s Beinecke Library

After seven years as ISAW’s Assistant Curator, Rachel Herschman will soon join Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library as its inaugural Exhibitions and Publications Program Director.

Over three centuries, Yale University Library has built special collections that represent an extraordinary range of human experience and knowledge, and the Beinecke Library, which is open to the public free-of-charge, welcomes more than 150,000 visitors each year. The new position reflects the Library’s commitment to sharing its special collections with a variety of audiences through innovative exhibitions and publications that uphold the highest ethical and professional standards.

A scholar of modern art, performance, and cultural history, Rachel’s collaborative exhibitions for ISAW frequently explored the reception of the ancient past by modern and contemporary artists; she was co-curator of Hymn to Apollo: The Ancient World and the Ballets Russes (2019) and Restoring the Minoans: Elizabeth Price and Sir Arthur Evans (2017). In addition to her curatorial practice,  Rachel co-wrote the digital complements to Ritual and Memory: The Ancient Balkans and Beyond (2022) as well as Pompeii in Color: The Life of Roman Painting (2022), and was the author of  the virtual exhibition The Empire's Physician: Prosperity, Plague, and Healing in Ancient Rome (2021). Together with Marc LeBlanc, Associate Director for Academic Affairs, she helped establish Expanding the Ancient World, ISAW’s outreach initiative which includes a series of professional development workshops for K–12 teachers and a community college partnership program.

Before joining ISAW, Rachel was Curatorial Assistant for Publications at the Jewish Museum, where she contributed to international loan exhibitions and catalogues, and prior to that, she was a Museum Educator at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Rachel holds a BA (Hons.) in Philosophy and German Studies from McGill University and an MA and PhD in Germanics from the University of Washington.

We are grateful for her work and excited to see what she will accomplish in her next role!