Research and education

Elisa Palomino is a fashion anthropologist, designer and researcher specialising in Indigenous Arctic material culture, sustainable fashion and museum collections. She is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Before completing her PhD in Sustainable Fashion Anthropology at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, she worked internationally in the fashion industry for twenty-five years, including senior positions at John Galliano, Christian Dior, Moschino and her own label. She has conducted research in forty museum collections across Europe, North America and Asia and has received support from institutions including the Fulbright Program, the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Koç University ANAMED and the International Institute for Asian Studies. She was also PI of the Horizon 2020 FishSkin project. 

Michela Prota is a Ph.D. candidate at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, supported by a doctoral scholarship from the Waksaw Archaeological Alliance focused on the cultural, religious, and artistic developments of Gandhāra during the early centuries CE, with a particular emphasis on the ancient region of Uḍḍiyāna (Swat Valley). Her research interests encompass the archaeology, epigraphy, and material culture of early Buddhism in the Indian Subcontinent. She has extensive excavation and documentation experience at Barikot with the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan (MAIP), having recently collaborated as an assistant archaeologist for the Khyber PATH project. Additionally, she worked as a research assistant for the "Buddhist Manuscripts From Gandhāra" project at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich, alongside advanced training in Sanskrit and Gāndhārī epigraphy at LMU Munich.

Her doctoral project is “Shapes, practices and spaces of Buddhism in Uḍḍiyāna: the case of Bazira/Vajirasthāna (3rd century BCE–15th century CE)”. The project aims to investigate the development of Buddhism in Barikot, a well-documented archaeological site in Uḍḍiyāna (Swat), excavated by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan. Through an interdisciplinary analytical framework, the research will trace the full historical trajectory of the Buddhist presence at the site, between the 3rd century BCE and the 15th century CE. The study will provide a detailed analysis of Barikot’s Buddhist spaces and practices, in light of archaeological, textual, epigraphical, and visual evidence. This will be achieved by examining both published and unpublished data available. The comprehensive framework offered by this research will contribute to advancing the current understanding of the Buddhist spread in Uḍḍiyāna and to establishing Barikot as a central hub in the wider expansion of Buddhism, previously overlooked.

Dr. Xialing Liu is a Post-doctoral Researcher at the Art Museum, Chinese University of Hong Kong (Chinese Lacquerware Research Project, supported by Baixian Foundation). She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and was a visiting scholar at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on Transcultural Art History, Material Culture (with a specialization in lacquer), Export Art, and Netherlandish Art, with a particular focus on lacquer cabinets, screens, rooms, and furniture. Dr. Liu's scholarly contributions have been presented at prestigious international forums including the College Art Association (CAA), European Association for Asian Art and Archaeology (EAAA), Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art (CIHA), and European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS). She serves as Chair and organized the session "The Global Circulation of Lacquer" at the 36th CIHA (2024, Lyon). 

Her research theme for this visiting scholar position is "Mapping Coromandel Lacquer Screens: The Global Circulation of 'Kuancai' Lacquer between Europe and Asia from 1635 to 1750." Italy preserves many ‘Kuancai’ (Coromandel) lacquer screens and panels that have, received limited scholarly attention. 

Dr. Rachel Taylor-Goh is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she teaches modules on East Asian history and empire. Her doctorate, attained at University College London (UCL) in 2025, examined how modern Chinese cultural heritage was assembled in the early twentieth century through the figure of the fossil hominid ‘Peking Man’, the site of his discovery at Zhoukoudian, and the collaborative work of Chinese and foreign scientific institutions. Her doctoral work is currently shortlisted for the 2026 Doctoral Thesis Prize by the British Association for Chinese Studies.
Her research explores intersections between the history of science, Critical Heritage Studies, and public history in late nineteenth and twentieth-century China, with particular attention to archaeology, palaeontology, and museological legacies. Rachel previously attained her Master’s in Empires, Colonialism, and Globalisation (International History) and her Bachelor’s in Law (LLB) from the LSE. Rachel is under contract with Post Wave Publishing for a forthcoming public history book, Seeing Modern China: A Visual History, 1850–1925, which is forthcoming in late 2027.

Prof. Fariba Zarinebaf is a historian specializing in the Ottoman and Safavid empires, with a particular focus on the social, economic, and cultural history of the early modern Mediterranean and Middle East. Her current research examines the role of silk in the commercial and diplomatic exchanges between Venice, the Ottoman Empire, and Safavid Iran during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This project forms part of a book manuscript under preparation for the University of California Press.

Her research draws on extensive work in Ottoman archives, Persian sources, and European archival and museum collections. During her stay at the Marco Polo Center for Global Connections, she will conduct research at the State Archives of Venice and the Museum of Palazzo Mocenigo, while collaborating with scholars specializing in Chinese ceramics, Persianate literature, and Ottoman-Venetian relations. She looks forward to contributing to the Center's academic community through scholarly exchange and by organizing a workshop on her research.