Dawn Odell is an assistant professor of art history at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Herself a graduate of Carleton College, Professor Odell is committed to undergraduate teaching and the synergy of the liberal arts environment. In 2011, Professor Odell was extremely honored to be awarded Teacher of the Year by Lewis & Clark students. A recipient of a Fulbright student grant to the Netherlands when Professor Odell was in graduate school, her most recent Fulbright award took her and her family – her two young sons were 1 and 4 at the time – to Shanghai, China. At Fudan University, Professor Odell taught courses designed to introduce students to current U.S. approaches to the study of art and history.

Professor Odell’s research focuses on the exchange of material goods and artistic practices between East Asia and Europe in the early modern period, with a particular emphasis on the Dutch engagement with China. She has published articles on the seventeenth-century Dutch travel book author Johan Nieuhof, Chinese export porcelain, Dutch and Chinese ethnographies, and early Sinology in Europe. Her recent research explores the visual culture of seventeenth-century Batavia (present-day Jakarta, Indonesia) and its diverse population of Chinese, Indonesia and Dutch inhabitants.