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Laura Martin is a Ph.D. student in Art History at SMU, specializing in the art of the early modern Hispanic world. Her research explores religious visual culture and its uses during this period, focusing especially on intersections between gender, sexuality and devotion. As president of MGSC, Martin is committed to fostering a supportive community of graduate students that supports our students’ professional growth and well-being.

Jennifer Laffick is a Ph.D. candidate in the art history department studying late 18th- and early 19th-century French art and empire. Her dissertation examines the transatlantic nature of French neoclassical painting in the years surrounding 1800. For this project, Laffick has received a Chateaubriand Fellowship and a Fulbright Doctoral Research Fellowship, as well as support from the Society for French Historical Studies and the Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture. Laffick has also held positions at the National Gallery of Art, the Norton Museum of Art and the Wallace Collection.

Erin Wilson is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the RASC/a: Rhetorics of Art, Space and Culture program. She received her M.A. in art history from the University of South Florida and her B.S. in arts administration from the University of Tampa. She focuses on French 18th-century portraiture, with an expanded interest in textile making and materiality. In 2024, Wilson published “Drafting an image of success: the Russian patronage of émigré Elisabeth Louise Vigée Lebrun” as part of a special issue of Renaissance Studies. In 2025, the MFAH's Hirsch Library and the University of Houston’s School of Art recognized her as an emerging scholar of excellence. Prior to attending SMU, Wilson served as Associate Curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, FL.