
PhD Candidate, Art History
Fields of Interest
Education
Biography
I earned my Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Art History, along with a certificate in Disability Studies at the University of Washington (2025). My dissertation, (Dis)ability and the Making of the Early Modern Artist, draws on diverse sources, including paintings, prints, drawings, published biographies, autobiographies, a private diary, treatises on art, and poetry. Through the contextual interpretation of these sources, my research reveals how artists represented their corporeality and embodiment in their writing, artworks, and notions about art-making. This research pioneers a new reading of fluidity as a defining characteristic of (dis)ability in early modern art, where it manifests not only in the subjects' experiences but also in the artistic techniques and media employed. By highlighting the fluidity between techniques and media as a hallmark of (dis)ability in early modern art, this study paves the way for a nuanced understanding of (dis)ability aesthetics in the early modern world, contributing valuable insights to ongoing scholarly efforts to define disability aesthetics. Before joining the University of Washington, I gained experience in museum and public-facing cultural work at the Negev Museum of Art in Beer-Sheva, the Ilana Goor Museum in Jaffa, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
I am a co-founder and organizer of the Dismantling the Canon Graduate Research Cluster. My service experience at UW includes the School of Arts' Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committee (DEIA) and the Arts and Sciences Advisory Council for Students (ASACS), which advises the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. While at UW, I was selected as a recipient of several awards, including the national AAUW American Dissertation Fellowship and the UW Presidential Dissertation Fellowship. I have presented my research at several conferences, including the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America and the CAA.
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Whiteley Scholar Residency, The Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center (HRWC), 2025Presidential Dissertation Fellowship in Arts and Humanities, 2024-2025AAUW American Dissertation Fellowship, 2024-2025Dennis Lang Award in Disability Studies, 2023Harlan Hahn Fellowship for Research in Disability Studies, 2023Arlene Hunter Scholarship for Research in the Humanities, 2023The Simpson Center Society of Scholars, 2023Joff Hanauer Award for Excellence in the Research of Western Civilization, 2022-2023Mortar Board Foundation Award, 2019, 2021, 2023Lloyd W. Nordstrom Art Scholarship, 2019, 2021, 2023De Cillia Teaching with Excellence Award, 2021Top Scholar Award in Art History, 2018-2019
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Selected Research
- Vallah, Or. “(Dis)ability and the Making of the Early Modern Artist.” PhD diss., The University of Washington, 2025. ProQuest (28453).
- "’Morto per l'arte:’ Early Modern Artists as Enabled Makers,” What's New About Renaissance Florence? RSA, Online, December 1, 2022.
- Or Vallah. "Nanni di Banco’s Assumption of the Virgin relief and its lost silk girdle." Presented at the Annual Meeting of The Renaissance Society of America, New Orleans, 2018.
- Or Vallah. "Unraveling the Knot: Filippo Lippi's The Feast of Herod as an expression of the conflict between Prato and Florence." Presented at the 9th Biennial ACIS Conference, Monash University Prato Centre, July 2017.
- Or Vallah. "The Invention of Death," in Portraits of Cain: Representation of Others in Israeli Contemporary Art (Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2012): 134–138.
- Vallah, Or. "Artmaking as Embodied Knowledge Shaped by Disability: The Case of Hendrick Goltzius." Renaissance Quarterly, Forthcoming in Fall 2025.
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Winter 2024
Winter 2023
Autumn 2022
Winter 2022
Additional CoursesAdditional Courses
SPRING 2023
Spring 2021
Autumn 2020
Autumn 2019
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Professional AffiliationsRenaissance Society of America (RSA); College Art Association (CAA); Disability History Association; The Israeli Association for Visual Culture in Middle Ages and Early Modern Periods (IMAGO); The Coordinating Council for Women in History (CCWH); American Association of University Women (AAUW)