Madeline Díaz

Madeline Díaz has over 15 years of experience creating and leading programs for museums and cultural institutions. She has worked for The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cloisters, the Frick Collection, the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and the Smithsonian Latino Center for which she currently serves as consultant. She develops and leads education programs for several French cultural institutions including the Grand Palais, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme and the Mona Bismarck American Center. She also teaches museum education and cultural mediation at the University of Versailles. She has traveled extensively through Spain, Italy and France and has a passion for art, photography, languages and flamenco. Madeline holds a BA from Brown University and an MA from Columbia University. 

Yves Thomas

Yves was Associate Professor at Trent University from 1990 to 2016.  He wrote his PhD dissertation on luxury in 19th century French decadent literature. His research areas stem from urban development in Paris under Napoleon the third, the Parisian aesthetic avant-garde in the 1920s and 50s and urban decay in contemporary Detroit. From 2010 to 2016, he played an administrative role as Director of the Year Abroad Program in Nantes France and as Chair of the Cultural Studies Department. He has been Chair of the board of Arts and Heritage Centre in Warkworth ON, Canada since February 2017.

Aneta Georgievska-Shine

Aneta Georgievska-Shine is a scholar of the Renaissance and the baroque eras, yet as an art historian, her interests range from ancient to contemporary art.  In addition to her affiliation with the University of Maryland, she frequently presents lectures for museums and art institutions in the Washington D.C. area, including the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian. Her publications include scholarly books and numerous articles in U.S. and international journals, as well as essays in exhibition catalogs.

A popular Smithsonian Journeys Expert, Aneta has led numerous journeys to France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, as well as Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to her art historical expertise, she brings a deep knowledge of the history, politics, and languages of Central and Eastern Europe. Aneta is a native speaker of Macedonian and has working knowledge of several other European languages.