Lisandra (Lia) Costiner is an Assistant Professor in the History of Art (Digital Art History), focusing on late-medieval and early-modern visual culture and digital methodologies. Her research is situated at the intersection of visual and material culture, heritage studies and digital technologies. She has a combined background in the arts and sciences having pursued undergraduate studies at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, where she focused on Visual Studies. She trained in the History of Art at the University of Oxford (MSt and PhD).
Over the years, Lia has held Post-Doctoral Fellowships at the Villa I Tatti, Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy (2022), and in the laboratories of Digital Humanities and Experimental Museology at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (2017-2018). Between 2018 and 2021, she was a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College, University of Oxford. In 2020-2021, she served as Stipendiary Lecturer in the History of Art at St. Peter's College and Worcester College, University of Oxford. In spring 2025 she was NWIB Visiting Professor at the Dutch University Institute for Art History (NIKI) in Florence.
Lia's research has been supported by a number of prestigious grants including ones awarded by the Delmas Foundation, the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship, the Renaissance Society of America, the British Federation for Women Graduates, the American Historical Association, the Medieval Association of America, and the UK Bibliographical Society, among others.
In the field of digital humanities, Lia leads a number of collaborative projects that use computational techniques to analyse visual and material culture (paintings, manuscripts, objects) and explores ways of engaging with new mixed reality technologies in teaching and research. Her most recent projects include, Decoding Raphael: Computational Study of the Production and Reproduction of Italian Renaissance Paintings, supported by the Netherlands eScience Center (2023-2024), and Innovation in Ship Design in the Age of Sail: A Digital Approach, supported by an NWO Open Competition XS grant (2024-2025).
Together with members of the department, Lia co-launched and collaboratively spearheads the Digital ArtLab, which leverages cutting edge digital technologies for the study of artistic and cultural heritage. This draws from her experience at the University of Oxford in founding and leading the international (En)coding Heritage Network. She also continues to co-lead the Oxford X-Reality Hub, the central point at the University of Oxford for project development, innovation and engagement with mixed reality technologies. Through this, she co-organizes the annual showcase of mixed-reality technologies the Immers-eXpo, which has concluded its sixth edition.
Lia is also a member of the Utrecht Young Academy through which she jointly spearheads the AI Helpdesk - an online community resource providing research-informed answers to public questions about AI.
Expressions of interest are welcome from BA/MA/PhD students attracted to any aspect of medieval/early-modern visual culture, or digital approaches.