Khristin Montes

Khristin N. Montes is an Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts. She is a broadly trained art historian with additional background in anthropology, archaeology, and museum studies. Her specific areas of research include Maya and Aztec art and architecture, Indigenous American visual culture and research methodologies, and intersections between art production and social justice. Dr. Montes has recently published on exhibition practices involving Native American, Maya, and African objects in museums; sacred landscapes and architecture in the Maya world; and on the importance of decolonizing college and university-level art history curriculum. Before joining Regis University, she was the Project Facilitator for the Cultural Heritage, Ecology, and Conservation of Yucatec Cenotes Project—a cultural and environmental sustainability and educational project that took place in nine Maya communities between 2018 and 2020. The “Cenotes Project” was jointly organized through InHerit (Indigenous Heritage Passed to Present) at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the Universidad de Oriente in Valladolid, Yucatán, Mexico and sponsored by the National Geographic Society. Dr. Montes holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Chicago and M.A.s from Northern Illinois University. To learn more, please see Dr. Montes’s CV.