Dr Charlene Vella leads research undertaken for Late Medieval and Renaissance art studies. She read for an undergraduate degree at the University of Malta in History of Art, which she followed with an M.A. also from the University of Malta for which she was awarded a Distinction. She successfully completed her Ph.D. at the University of Warwick where she was the recipient of a full scholarship. Her Ph.D tutor was Dr Donal Cooper (University of Cambridge).
Her first book is 'The Mediterranean Artistic Context of Late Medieval Malta 1091-1530' (Midsea Books, 2013) and she has just published "In the Footsteps of Antonello da Messina: The Antonelliani in Sicily and Venice in the Late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries" (Midsea Books, 2022). She is also the author of several papers in journals and edited books and participates in international conferences, the latest being the Bruges Symposium XXII for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting in March 2022.
She has since 2018 convened the Dynamics of Mediterranean artistic interaction in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance Periods conference at the Valletta Campus. Dr Vella is a member of the Malta Planning Authority's Design Advisory Committee.
Dr Vella was a Committee member of the Malta Historical Society (MHS) between 2009 and 2013. She is the Academic Coordinator for ERASMUS students and Undergraduate dissertations for the Department of Art and Art History, and a member of the Faculty of Arts' Student Requests Committee, the Course Catalogues & Programmes Committee, and the MAMS Board of Studies.
Dr Vella was awarded the Premio Antonello da Messina for the section Studi Antonelliani on 14 April in a ceremony held in Rome by the Associazione Culturale Antonello da Messima.
