The Hunterian

Dr Giovanna Vitelli
Head of Collections and Curatorial

Short Biography
Dr Giovanna Vitelli joined The Hunterian in 2019 from the University of Oxford, having been Director of the Ashmolean Museum’s internationally recognised University Engagement Programme. The programme significantly expanded the academic use of the Ashmolean’s collections across a wide range of Oxford’s departments, working in partnership to develop innovative cross-disciplinary teaching and research. She also partnered with colleagues at Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum to open their collections to multi-disciplinary use.

At The Hunterian, Dr Vitelli is working closely with museum colleagues to make the collections accessible to academic and public users alike, developing sustainable long term research projects and cross-disciplinary partnerships with university peers on both specialist research and on wider topics such as Empire, climate change, and the decolonising of research practice.

Dr Vitelli, an archaeologist and anthropologist, has done field work, teaching, and research in colonialist archaeology, indigenous histories, and museum anthropology, and has authored a number of publications on museum method and theory.

^{Image © David Gowers.}