Carissa Maria DiCindio
Associate Professor, Applied Intercultural Arts Research - GIDP
Carissa DiCindio’s research, teaching, and service center on art museum education, with a specific focus on museum-community partnerships, university art museums as spaces for collaboration and innovation, and creating opportunities for dialogue and connection in art museum programming. She collaborates on projects and programs with museums and community organizations in Tucson, including the University of Arizona Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, and ArtWorks, to develop experiential learning opportunities with university students. Her publications include Engaging Communities Through Civic Engagement in Art Museum Education (IGI Global), co-edited with Bryna Bobick in 2021.
DiCindio is the editor of the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education. She serves as the museum education representative on the Professional Learning through Research Working Group of the National Art Education Association (NAEA).
She was the Pacific regional director for the Higher Education Division of the NAEA (2021-23) and the former president of the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries (2016-2017). She was awarded the NAEA Southeastern Art Museum Educator Award (2011), the Kathy Connors Teaching Award from the Women’s Caucus of NAEA (2020), the Charles and Irene Putnam Excellence in Teaching Award, College of Fine Arts (2022), and the Lee Herbst Faculty Innovation Award, School of Art (2023). In 2020, she received the Journal of Museum Education (JME) Award for Writing Excellence as Guest Editor of the JME issue The past in the present: The relevancy of the history of museum education today.
Prior to her position at the University of Arizona, DiCindio was the Curator of Education at the Georgia Museum of Art where she worked for 14 years. As a member of the graduate faculty, she taught courses in art museum education at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, University of Georgia.
DiCindio holds a B.F.A. in studio art with a concentration in painting from Kutztown University, and an M.A. in art history and a Ph.D. in art education (awarded with distinction) from the University of Georgia.
