Deborah Willis


Deborah Willis, Ph.D, is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University where she teaches courses on photography and imaging, iconicity, and cultural histories visualizing the black body, women, and gender. She is a photographer and her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, contemporary women photographers and beauty.

She received the MacArthur Fellowship and was a Richard D. Cohen Fellow in African and African American Art, Hutchins Center, Harvard University and a Guggenheim Fellow. Other notable projects include “The Black Female Body A Photographic History,” “Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers – 1840 to the Present;” “Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present;” “Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs,” a NAACP Image Award Literature Winner.