About

Assoc. Prof. Sarena Abdullah, Ph.D is the current Dean and an Art Historian at the School of the Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). She was awarded the inaugural London, Asia Research Award, by Paul-Mellon Centre, London and Asian Art Archive, Hong Kong in 2017. She was also the recipient of the 2016, and 2017 & 2019 CAA-Getty Travel Grant as part of the CAA-Getty International and Reunion Program. Now, she is the co-chair for the College Arts Association (CAA) International Committee. Sarena wrote Malaysian Art since the 1990s: Postmodern Situation (2018) and the co-edited Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art 1945-1990 (2018), published by the Power Institute and the National Gallery Singapore. She is the current editor of Berita, the Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei (MSB) Studies Group bulletin. MSB is a committee under the Southeast Asia Council (SEAC) of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS).  She had greatly promoted Malaysian art by publishing extensively on various academic journals and other platforms.