Emily Cornish is an Assistant Professor of  Indigenous art and visual culture in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. Dr. Cornish’s research focuses on the Indigenous Pacific, particularly Hawaiian women’s art and visual culture and its relationship to Hawaiian sovereignty and self-determination during the Hawaiian Kingdom and early territorial periods Dr. Cornish’s research and teaching interests intersect at the nexus of Indigenous feminisms, art and visual culture, gender studies, and settler colonial studies, exploring how artistic practices engage questions of political resistance, ecological relations, and decolonial futures. 

Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of Pacific Arts and the Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies. Her essay, “ʻĀina and the Accession Photographs of Queen Kapiʻolani and Queen Liliʻuokalani,” was published as part of the edited volume Ecologies of Photography in the American West (Leuven University Press). Dr. Cornish’s work has also appeared in the open educational resource Smarthistory: The Center for Public Art History, a platform dedicated to making art history free and accessible to a broad audience. She is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Australian, Canadian, and Aotearoa New Zealand Studies. 

She is currently working on her first book project is a multimedia study of Queen Emma Rooke, Princess Ruth Keʻelikolani, Queen Kapiʻolani, Queen Liliʻuokalani, and Princess Elizabeth Kahanu Kalanianaʻole and their ladies and waiting. The project examines their relationships to the makaʻāinana, as well as questions of sovereignty and power. It also explores how these women challenged U.S. settler colonialism and imperialism from the Hawaiian Kingdom period through the early territorial period.

In her free time, Dr. Cornish enjoys reading and watching fantasy series, continuing her hula training under the supervision of Kumu Amy Kuʻuleialoha Stillman, and hanging out with her tuxedo cat Keni.