Art History major and McNair Scholar Adee Benartzy has had a passion for the arts ever since she was a child. She moved to America from Israel when she was eight years old. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. and a career as a museum curator and is currently involved in numerous research endeavors.
Adee was recently selected to participate in the 2011 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at Yale University. The SURF program brings highly qualified undergraduates to Yale for eight weeks and provides them with insight into graduate and Ph.D. level training through mentorship, individual research, and workshops. Her participation in the SURF program was funded by a grant from the Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative.
Adee’s research at Yale now serves as the basis for an undergraduate thesis at UCF. She was awarded an Honors in the Major Scholarship for her proposal entitled “The Pastel Study: Communicating Sexuality and Promiscuity in Late Nineteenth-Century Paris.” Under the mentorship of Ilenia Colon-Mendoza, she will study late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century art, particularly in France, and its impact on visual culture and the rise of Modernism.
Adee also received the McNair Scholar Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Research and has presented at several conferences. She also works as a freelance writer, a consultant for the University Writing Center, and a volunteer for the UCF Art Gallery.