Meet Art History Major Audrey Tarn

Audrey Tarn is a senior double major in Art History and Computer Science.

She has spent several semesters working in the Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture, where she has explored the intersection of technology and art history under the supervision of Dr. Quint Gregory and Dr. Chris Cloke.

From Audrey Tarn:

"My senior year (2019-2020) was when I finally decided to declare an art history major [in addition to computer science]. Whenever I tell people my majors, they always comment on how different they are.  However, through the Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture, I have been able to better understand how STEM and the humanities are very much interlinked.

Now that I have been involved in the Collaboratory for some time, I can also see practical professional opportunities in digital humanities. One example was during our collaboration with the National Museum of Women in the Arts. For one of their exhibitions, I designed and created an informative animated timeline that was put on display. Digital humanities is quite a new field, which makes it feel daunting and unstable, but I think there are many possibilities to explore with my technical background. 

While it is easy to fall into the mindless pit of just throwing technology at our problems, I expect that is where my art history background will kick in to reorient me when needed."