University Art Museum Names Madelaine Thomas as the 2022-23 Palitz Art Scholar

The University Art Museum is pleased to announce Madelaine Thomas as the 2022-23 Louise ’44 and Bernard Palitz Art Scholar. The Palitz Graduate Art Scholar Endowed Fund was established in 2011 by longtime museum advocates Louise Beringer Palitz and Bernard Palitz to support outstanding Syracuse University graduate students in art history and/or museum studies. Awardees are known as Palitz Art Scholars in recognition of their achievements and potential in the fields of art history and/or museum studies.

Thomas (she/her) is a third-year graduate student pursuing consecutive master’s degrees in art history and museum studies. She graduated with a bachelor’s in art history with a minor in global studies from the University of Arkansas in 2019. She currently works as a reference assistant at the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Libraries and in the collections department at the Everson Museum of Art. Her studies center on medieval manuscript illumination and the complex visual and textual narratives of Europe’s collective cultural heritage and patrimony.

As the Palitz Art Scholar, Thomas is currently developing a pilot project for hyperspectral imaging of medieval manuscripts on campus. In digital archaeology and art preservation, the non-invasive digital technique she plans to use can reveal hidden materials, pigments and inks that are invisible to the naked eye, which can be used as evidence that researchers can study to discuss how art, literature and religion developed together during the Middle Ages.