Deborah Willis is University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU), and has an affiliated appointment with NYU College of Arts and Sciences. Her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, the photographic history of Slavery and Emancipation, contemporary women photographers and beauty. She is a recipient of the MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships. Willis is the author of Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (Norton, 2009), The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship (NYU Press, 2021), and co-author of The Black Female Body: A Photographic History (Temple University Press, 2002), Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery (Temple University Press, 2012), and Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs (Norton, 2009).
