Headshot of Dr.Mia Reinoso  Genoni

Dr. Mia Reinoso Genoni

Dean of Westhampton College
Associate Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences
Affiliated Faculty, Art and Art History; Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Curriculum Vitae

  • Profile

    Dean Mia Reinoso Genoni is responsible for the support, mentorship, advising, and care of Westhampton students, for helping create thriving and inclusive communities, and for the direction and vision of Westhampton College overall. She serves as the chief academic officer for the College, handling routine and exceptional academic requests, petitions, and other matters. Also known as “Dean G,” she meets with students one-on-one to discuss academic, co-curricular, and social matters, as well as with student organizations and groups, and she is a passionate supporter of student art, advocacy, and activism. Dean Genoni is also the head advisor of the Westhampton College Government Association and co-head advisor of the University of Richmond Honor Councils. She has co-created numerous new programs for Westhampton College, and very much enjoys leading and attending Westhampton and will events with her students and the greater Westhampton community. Dean Genoni is helped in her endeavors by her devoted Pekingese Leeloo, who is always ready to play or snuggle with students.

    Dean Genoni also teaches and advises in the Department of Art and Art History and in Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of Richmond. She has received notable awards and fellowships for her scholarship, teaching, and dedication to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, including being named the Common Ground Faculty/Staff Ally of the Year (2018), given the WILL* Badass Feminist Award (2018), and named Alpha Chi Omega Professor of the Semester (2007) at the University of Richmond. Her scholarly interests include: ways in which we build and structure society; the creation of joyful and welcoming communities and spaces; communication and representation of the self, especially in relation to gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, and beyond; inclusion and the celebration of difference; and examinations of power and personal identity. 

    To make an appointment with Dean Genoni, please call Kristen Phelps at 804-289-8468. Please note that masks are required for meetings with Dean Genoni. 

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    • Grants and Fellowships

      Wye Faculty Seminar: Citizenship in the American and Global Polity, The Aspen Institute, July 2017
      Rare Book School Full-Tuition Scholarship, RBS, University of Virginia, 2010
      Mellon Special Collections Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University, 2008-2010
      Whitney Humanities Center Fellow, Yale University, 2008-2010
      Scott Opler Grant for Emerging Professionals, Society of Architectural Historians, 2008
      Scott Opler Study Tour Fellowship for “Unveiling Southern Italian Architecture: Naples and Campania from Antiquity through the 18th Century,” SAH, 2008
      Bernard Berenson Fellowship for Studies in Renaissance Art, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (IFA), 2000-2006
      McAfee Foundation Fellowship, IFA, 1998-2006
      Institute of Fine Arts Alumni Fellowship for Dissertation Research, IFA, 2004
      Jean B. Rosenwald Memorial Fellowship for Dissertation Research, IFA, 2004
      Robert L.H. Chambers Memorial Fellowship for Dissertation Research, IFA, 2004
      Benjamin Sonnenberg Fellowship, IFA, 2003-2004
      Lila Acheson Wallace Fellowship for Studies in Modern Art, IFA, 1999-2000
      Theodore Rousseau Fellowship, IFA, 1998-1999
      Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. Grant for Thesis Research in Art History, Harvard University, 1996-1997

    • Awards

      Common Ground Faculty/Staff Ally of the Year Award, 2018
      The WILL* Badass Feminist Award, 2018
      Mortar Board Honor Society, 2016-
      Alpha Chi Omega Professor of the Semester, University of Richmond, 2007
      Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize for Excellence in Theses, Harvard University, 1997

    • Presentations

      Selected Engagement with Campus and Community

      Student Development DEI readings, University of Richmond, co-lead discussions for: Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility (2019-20), Lama Rod Owens’ talk The Dharma of Collective Resilience and book Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger (2020-21), Tiffany Jewell’s This Book is Anti-Racist (2021-22), Naomi Ortiz’s Sustaining Spirit: Self-Care for Social Justice (2022-23).

      Westhampton Cares Book Circle, virtual, University of Richmond, co-lead alum discussion series of books by Thich Nhat Hanh (ongoing, 2021-): How to Connect (October 2021), How to Love (February 2022), How to Relax (June 2022) -

      will Senior Seminar, University of Richmond, “The Practice of Gratitude and Love as Activism,” February 2021; “Love as Activism, Joy as Resistance” (February 2022).

      Co-led Spiritual Liberation Reading Group, virtual, for alums, on Lama Rod Owens’ Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger, January 2021.

      West Richmond Rotary Club, April 2019.  “The Art of Women & Power: Queen Elizabeth I and The Allegory of the Tudor Succession.

      “Strategies for Success: Myths & Misinformation – and How to Combat Them,” The Warrior-Scholar Project, Georgetown University, June 2017, June 2018.

      will Colloquium, University of Richmond, March 2018. “Constructing the Queen: Body, Gender, Sexuality, and Power in An Allegory of the Tudor Succession.”

      “Bodies Foreign and Familiar: Encounters between Old and ‘New’ Worlds in the Yale Collections,” Sutton Trust Masterclass, Yale University, July 2015; also given at Rector’s Tea, Yale-NUS Summer Orientation, Yale University, July 2013.

      “Before and after de Tocqueville: Americana and National Identity,” Discussion with primary sources in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, The Warrior-Scholar Project, Yale University, June 2013.

      “Communicating Architecture and Design: Why Francesco di Giorgio Martini Illustrated His Trattati di archittetura ingegneria e arte militare,” Gallery Talk for “The Power of Pictures” exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Oct. 2013.

      “By Draught and Design: England, Architecture, and Identity.” Exhibition Curator, Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library, Yale University, May-July 2010.

      “Invented Bodies: Shapely Constructs of the Early Modern,” Exhibition Curator, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University, March-June 2010. Gallery Talk, International Festival of Arts and Ideas, June 2010.

      “Body & Land: Picturing the Ideal in Early Modern England.” Whitney Humanities Center, Fellows Luncheon, Yale University, April 2010.

      “Observation & Judgment in the Humanities,” co-organizer of symposium, Yale University, March 2010; presented “Seeing Understanding: Vision and Revision in the Renaissance Invention of the Architectural Treatise.”

      “Staging History in An Allegory of the Tudor Succession,” Art in Context Gallery Talk, Yale Center for British Art, Oct. 2009.

      “The Utopian Impulse,” Exhibition Curator, Memorabilia Room, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, June-Sept. 2009. Gallery Talk, International Festival of Arts and Ideas, June 2009: “The Utopian Impulse: Constructing the Ideal in Early Modern England and the Americas,” Lecture, July 2009.

      “To See and Understand: Word and Image as Persuasion in Filarete’s Architettonico libro,” Lecture, Medieval-Renaissance Forum, Yale University, March 2009.

      Guest Judge, Plein Air Festival, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Boyertown, PA, July 2008.

      “Why Renaissance Art Matters Today,” for Virginia State Quest Seminar Lecture Series on “What Moves Us?” University of Richmond, VA, Oct. 2006.

      “Collect/Recollect,” Memorial Lecture in Honor of Pinkney Near, Chief Curator Emeritus of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, art6 gallery, Richmond, VA, Oct. 2004.


      Other Selected Conferences, Papers, and Invited Lectures

      Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Architecture in Honor of Marvin Trachtenberg, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2010. Paper: “Building the Architect.”

      Lecture, Dept. of Art + Architecture, University of San Francisco, CA, 2010. “Museum Studies: (Re)Discovered Bodies of Early Modern England.”

      Lecture, Dept. of Art History, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 2010. “Building the Palazzo Medici: Structure, Strategy, and the Urban Fabric of Renaissance Florence.”
      The Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, Los Angeles, CA, 2009. Session: “Reinventing the Old Master: Fact, Fiction, and Fabrication in the Afterlives of the Early Modern Artist.” Response: “Deliberations.”

      The Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, 2008. Session Chair: “Quattrocento Architecture and Architectural Theory III.”

      Lorado Taft Lectureship in Art, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 2008. “Illustration as Persuasion in Filarete’s Architettonico Libro.”

      The Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, Miami, FL, 2007. Session: “Looking at the Overlooked in Quattrocento Architecture and Architectural Treatises II: Alberti, Filarete, Francesco di Giorgio Martini II.” Paper: “Disegno and Invenzione in the Architettonico libro: Filarete’s Interior View of ‘The House of Virtue and Vice.’”

      The Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, San Francisco, CA, 2006. Session: “Looking at the Overlooked in Quattrocento Architecture and Architectural Treatises III: Filarete.” Paper: “Filarete in Word and Image: The Illustrative Impulse and the Architectural Imagination.”

      The Thirteenth Biennial Conference on Medieval-Renaissance Studies, New College, University of South Florida, Sarasota, FL, 2002. Paper: “Myth, Method, and Monument: The Unnatural History of the Palimpsest Wall of the Palazzo Vecchio.”

      The Early Modern Graduate Conference, Claremont University, Claremont, CA, 2002. “Aliens and Outsiders: Beyond the Margins of Early Modern Europe, 1450-1750.” Paper: “Mapping Expansion: The Fertile Hybrids of Sixteenth-Century New Spain.”

      The Annual Conference of the W. E. B. DuBois Society, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2002. “The Problem of Race.” Plenary session, shared with the artist: “The Problem as Self-Portrait: Lynette K. Stephenson’s ‘White Girl Series.’”

      Conference, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, 2001. “Laying Claim: (Re)Considering Artists of African Descent in the Americas.” Paper: “‘Perhaps There’s No Other’: Repositioning Identity and Identification in the Works of Samuel Beckett and Lorna Simpson (Through Each’s Other).”

    • Professional Experience

      John B. Madden Dean of Berkeley College and Lecturer, History of Art and Humanities, Yale University (2010-2016)
      Chief Advisor for student and academic affairs matters for over 460 students, including Eli Whitney (non-traditional); first contact for urgent situations.  Worked closely with college head and colleagues across campus.  Responsible for all student affairs and academic advising, handling issues of campus climate and alcohol and other policies, housing, supporting individual and community well-being, and advising for Executive Committee (disciplinary) and University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct proceedings.  Oversaw Freshman Counselors; developed new mentorship programs.  Helped design, evaluate, and refine major student affairs initiatives and served on numerous committees. Taught and advised in History of Art and Humanities.


      Director of Undergraduate Housing, Yale College Dean¿s Office, Yale University (2015-2016)
      Oversaw housing for over 4900; set and implemented policy, handled urgent situations, and adjudicated exceptional requests.  Spearheaded initiatives on LGBTQ needs and gender neutral housing.  Met with Yale College Council.  Helped host 2015 Ivy Plus Housing Conference.


      Assistant Dean for Summer Projects, Yale College Dean¿s Office, Yale University (Summer 2015)

      Handled all student affairs matters, including advising individual students, initiating revision of correspondence to use gender-neutral language, mentoring and training new deans, working on Freshman Orientation and Freshman Counselor training, assessing and adjudicating exceptional requests, helping to update the Undergraduate Regulations, and handling urgent situations. 


      Residential College Dean Summer Project, Yale College Dean¿s Office, Yale University (Summer 2012)

      Worked on student and academic affairs issues, including reviewing new UWC procedures and alcohol policies, revising Freshman Counselor training, and updating Undergraduate Regulations.


      Professor, The Warrior-Scholar Project, Yale University (2015-2016)
      Taught critical thinking through literature, art, and architecture to veterans preparing for college.


      Mellon Special Collections Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, Whitney Humanities Center Fellow, and Lecturer, History of Art and Special Programs in the Humanities, Yale University (2008-2010)
      Duties included teaching, curating, and campus and community talks.


      The College of Visual and Performing Arts, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (2007-2008)
      Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History (Renaissance and Baroque); 4-4 teaching load.


      Department of Art and Art History, University of Richmond (2005-2007)

      Visiting Instructor of Art History (Sabbatical Replacement: Medieval and Modern, 2006-7); Adjunct Instructor of Art History (Maternity Replacement: Renaissance and Baroque, 2005).
      Courses cross-listed with Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies or Art; 4-4 teaching load

    • Institutional Service

      Member, Institutional Coordinating Council (ICC), 2022-
      Co-chair, Threat Assessment Team Review Task Force, 2021-22
      Member, Well 100 Content Revision Committee, 2022
      Member, Community Dialogue Facilitation Network, Spring 2021 cohort
      Member (ex officio), Petitions Committee, 2021-
      Member, Resiliency Committee, 2020-21, 2022
      Member, Isolation & Quarantine Resiliency Subcommittee, 2020-
      Member, Athletics Strategic Planning Working Group, 2020-21
      Member, First-Year Experience Committee, 2018, 2021-
      Member, Student Persistence Task Force, 2018-
      Member, President’s Advisory Committee for Making Excellence Inclusive (PAC-MEI), 2017-19
      Co-chair, PAC-MEI Subcommittee for Student Support Services, 2018-19 
      Member (ex officio), Academic Committee for International Education, 2016-
      Member, Admissions Review Committee, 2016-
      Member, Bias Resource Team, 2016-
      Member (ex officio), Disability Advocacy Committee (formerly the Academic Disabilities Accommodation Committee), 2016-
      Member (ex officio), Student Co-Curricular Academic Initiatives Committee, 2016-
      Member (ex officio, rotating chair), Student Development Committee, 2016-
      Member, Student Involvement Committee, 2016-
      Member (ex officio), Undergraduate Student Academic Integrity Committee, 2016-
      Member (ex officio), Undergraduate Admissions Committee, 2016-
      Member, will Advisory Committee, 2016-
      Member, Common App Gender Question Committee, 2016-17
      Member, Eating and Behavior Issues Concern Team, 2016-17
      Member, Gender Inclusive Housing Committee, 2016-17
      Member, Hardship/Retention Fund Committee, 2016-17
      Member, Faculty Learning Committee – The Confident Leader, 2016-17
      Member, Strategic Plan Working Group – Thriving and Inclusive Committee, 2016
      Co-organizer, Post-Soul Lecture and Performance Series, grant-funded, 2006-2007
      Organizer, new interdisciplinary lecture series, grant-funded, 2005-2007
      Member, Committee for Implementing Digital Image Technology, 2005-2006

  • Publications
    Additional Publications

    With Erling Sjvold and Jeannine Keefer, “Visual Arts,”  SAGE Encyclopedia of Leadership Studies, Forthcoming in 2023.

    Entries for the Encyclopedia of Identity, Visual Arts & Cultural Studies Volume, SAGE Publications: “Architecture, Sites & Spaces,” “The History of Otherness,” and “Renaissance Art,” 2010.

    Vedere e ’ntendere: Word and Image as Persuasion in Filarete’s Architettonico libro.”  Architettura e Umanesimo: Nuovi studi su Filarete, Arte lombarda 155, no. 1 (2009): 23-38.

    “Rhythm and Flow.”  Review of Why Architecture Matters, by Paul Goldberger.  New Haven Advocate, Oct. 22, 2009, 27.

    Review of Die Renaissance der Architekten: Profession und Souveränität des Baukünstlers in Giorgio Vasaris Viten, by Matteo Burioni.  Renaissance Quarterly 62, no. 2 (Sum. 2009): 530-1.

    “Report: Unveiling Southern Italian Architecture: Naples and Campania from Antiquity through the 18th Century,” SAH News 70, no. 4 (Aug./Sept. 2008): 1-7.

    Official blog for SAH Study Tour “Unveiling Southern Italian Architecture,” 2008: http://sahinternational.blogspot.com/search?q=genoni.  

    “‘Perhaps There’s No Other’: Envisioning Identity in the Works of Samuel Beckett and Lorna Simpson,” Envisioning: Studies in Image and Idiom, SUNY Binghamton (peer-reviewed), 2002.

    Head Researcher for Boston’s Museum of Afro-American History’s contribution to Dictionary Catalog of the Collection of African American Literature in the Mildred F. Sawyer Library of Suffolk University, by Edward Clark (Boston, 1996).