Kristina Van Dyke is an independent scholar who is currently researching terra cotta figures produced in the Inland Niger Delta of Mali between the 11th and 17th centuries. Previously, she was director of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, where she curated, with Frédéric Cloth, the exhibition Kota: Digital Excavations in African Art. Prior to that, Van Dyke was curator for collections and research at the Menil Collection. Van Dyke has taught at the University of Houston, Rice University, and Washington University. She has received fellowships from The Brown Foundation, Inc., The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Center for Curatorial Leadership, and National Arts Strategies. In 1999, she received her MA in art history from Williams College and went on to obtain her PhD in 2005 from Harvard University, where she wrote her dissertation on the concept of objects in oral cultures in Mali. In 2017, Van Dyke served as a panelist in Exhibitions & Public Interpretation, and in 2018, she served as a LOI panelist.
