Hannah Townsend joined ISAW as Publications and Interpretive Manager in October 2024, overseeing the production of catalogues and didactics for the Institute's exhibitions. She has over a decade of experience developing illustrated texts and interpretive material for cultural institutions, with editorial credits on A Generous Medium: Photography at Wellesley 1972–2012, Art_Latin_America: Against the Survey, México, The Land of Charm, The Tarot of Leonora Carrington, Omen: Phantasmagoria at the Farm Security Administration Archive: 1935–1944, and the upcoming Nuevo León: El futuro no está escrito (Nuevo León: The Future is Unwritten). Prior to ISAW, she served as Editorial Manager at Manhattan School of Music, Curatorial Assistant at the Davis Museum, and a literary agent specializing in nonfiction and legacy publications.
Born in Boston, Hannah received her BA in literature/French/art history from Wellesley College and MPhil in critical theory from Pembroke College, Cambridge. Her research focuses on domestic architecture and practice as a microcosm of national identity, particularly in fin-de-siècle/early twentieth-century “estate” literature and cinema. Her current project is on codifying oral history—namely family recipes—in film, conducting a close reading of Catherine Scorsese’s tomato sauce as featured in her son Martin’s documentary Italianamerican.