faculty

Marcella Stockstill is Associate Professor and Co-Chair, Liberal Arts + Art History. Her research and teaching explore the interconnected histories of the visual arts and sciences from the 15th to 17th centuries. After completing her undergraduate studies at UC Irvine, Marcella earned her MA in Art History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a thesis tracing 15th-century exchanges in optics, color production, and alchemy between Netherlandish and Italian artists.

A full-time lectureship in Art History at Chapman University inspired Marcella to pursue her doctorate at Claremont Graduate University, where she earned her PhD in History and Early Modern Studies. Her work restores a new class of natural philosophers to the historical record—firemasters who practiced alchemy and handbook illustration—reestablishing their place at the intersections of art and science.

Marcella’s research is supported by The Newberry Library in Chicago, The California Rare Book School at UCLA, and the Center for European Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. A $10,000 Transdisciplinary Dissertation Award in 2017, in addition to the Friedman Award, and the Ida Lloyd Crotty Endowed Scholarship at CGU proved essential to her research. Her publications include the Bodman Collection of Italian Renaissance Manuscripts (Libraries, Claremont Colleges), and book reviews for Routledge and Laurence King Publishers in the UK.

Currently, Marcella is engaged in reverse-engineering a 17th-century pyrotechnic dragon from the illustrated handbook central to her dissertation. Most important, she is honored to teach at LCAD, whose students serve as a constant source of pride with their uncommon talent, insight, energy, humor, and inspiring turn-of-mind for processes of the natural world.