Vanessa Wilkie, Ph.D.

Vanessa Wilkie, Ph.D., is the head of the Library Curatorial department and curates the Library’s renowned collections of medieval manuscripts and British history. She earned her Ph.D. in British history from the University of California, Riverside, and was a visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Redlands before coming to The Huntington in 2013. She is an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has held fellowships from the American Philosophical Society and the Houghton Library. Wilkie co-curates the Library's Stories From the Library exhibition series and curated “Magna Carta: Law & Legend” and “The Reformation: From the Word to the World.” She has published on female editorial practices, patronage, and death rituals. Her book A Woman of Influence: The Spectacular Rise of Alice Spencer in Tudor England (Atria/Simon & Schuster) was published in April 2023.