Fiona Helms (she/her) is a first-year MA student whose research focuses on painting in the Low Countries during the Northern Renaissance and Seventeenth Century. She is most interested in the intersection of Dutch religious paintings with subjects of disease, disability, and physical conditions of the working class.  

In 2023, her scholarship on Rembrandt van Rijn was published in the University of Mary Washington’s Columns undergraduate journal for the humanities, and in 2024, she presented this research at Johns Hopkins University during the Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium. In fall of 2024, Helms completed an independent study titled “The Journey of Keiga: A Study of Dutch Influence in Ukiyo-e Maritime Prints,” in which she utilized historical accounts, journal entries and trade records to construct a chronological framework tracing the earliest presence of linear perspective in Edo Period Japan.  

In spring of 2025, she was awarded with a Gilman Scholarship grant and studied at Florence University of the Arts in Florence, Italy, an experience that solidified her interest in Baroque European painting. Helms graduated summa cum laude from the University of Mary Washington in 2026, where she majored in art history. Upon completing her degree, she received an award from UMW’s department faculty for outstanding excellence in art historical research.