DETROIT, MI.-The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has selected Heather Ecker as curator of Islamic art and head of the department of Middle Eastern, Islamic, and Asian Art. Dr. Ecker comes to the DIA from the new Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, where she served as assistant curator during the past year. Previously, she was the guest curator of the exhibition Caliphs and Kings: The Art and Influence of Islamic Spain at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. Ecker joined the DIA staff last month.

Ecker has an impressive and varied background. Born in New York, she graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in Islamic Studies, and earned a bachelor’s of science in Archaeological Conservation at the University of London. She went on to obtain her master’s and doctorate of philosophy in Islamic Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford. Ecker has held post-doctoral fellowships from both the Smithsonian Institution and the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University, where she taught Islamic art history.

“We are delighted to have Heather Ecker on board,” said Graham W. J. Beal, DIA director. “Our Islamic art collection will receive the attention it rightly deserves, from a highly qualified specialist eager to study and reveal these wonderful works of art to our visitors.”

As the DIA continues to plan for the reinstallation of its collection when the current renovation project is completed in 2007, Ecker welcomes the opportunity the project affords. “It is an exciting time to be joining the DIA, as we work to become a better museum,” said Ecker. “The collection will be re-installed in a newly designed and more prominent area that will provide space for large objects, such as carpets and textiles, a particularly rich part of the collection.”

Ecker is looking forward to working with the rest of her department’s collection as well, “The rest of the Asian and Middle Eastern collection is also rich, and it is my hope that the department will serve not only as an asset for the Detroit metropolitan region, but also for scholars, students and members of the public on state, national and international levels.”