Dr. Michele Bambling is visiting associate professor of art and art history at New York University Abu Dhabi, where she teaches courses on Japanese art and design. She founded and served as creative director of Lest We Forget, an arts and heritage initiative established under the auspices of the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation in 2013. Dr. Bambling has curated a number of festivals and exhibitions pertaining to the UAE, including: “Living Landscape | Living Memory” at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2022, UAE; US: “50 Years in Partnership”, held jointly at the Reach, The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and the VIP section of the US Pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai in 2021; “Photographs in Dialogue: UAE—1971—UK”, held jointly by the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the Etihad Museum, Dubai, in 2020, and many others.
Dr. Bambling holds Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. degrees from New York’s Columbia University in art history. Dr. Bambling conducted a Jane and Morgan Whitney post-doctoral fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.