The Department of Art History and Art is delighted to announce the hire of Dr. Rachel Quist, who will be joining CWRU in the fall. Dr. Quist specializes in Buddhist visual culture of medieval Japan, and is especially interested in the interactions between Buddhist icons, their worshipers, and their natural environs. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Kansas with the  dissertation “Forging Bonds through Icons and Ritual: Imperial Patronage of Daigoji,” which illuminates the centrality of sculptural icons within the complex interplay of medicinal rituals, imperial politics, and the cosmic worldview of premodern Japan. In 2024, Dr. Quist participated in installing an exhibition of Daigoji’s treasures at Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka. In 2023, she received a Dissertation Fellowship from the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies, and in 2022–2023, Dr. Quist conducted fieldwork in Japan with the support of a Fulbright-Hays fellowship. Her research has been published by the Spencer Museum of Art and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. In 2019, she curated Porcelains of Dehua: From Regional Kilns to Global Markets at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.