Prof. Dr. Barbara Welzel

Prof. Dr. Barbara Welzel, Professor of Art History and Cultural Education. Born in 1961, she studied Art History, Musicology, and Philosophy in Bochum and Berlin. She received her doctorate in 1989 from the Free University of Berlin. From 1986 to 1990, she worked in museum education at the Gemäldegalerie, the Sculpture Collection, and the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. From 1990 to 1991, she contributed to the exhibition “Rembrandt. The Master and His Workshop” at the Kupferstichkabinett and the Gemäldegalerie of the State Museums of Berlin (with further stations in Amsterdam and London). From 1991 to 1998, she was an assistant at the Institute of Art History at Philipps University Marburg, where she completed her habilitation in 1997.

After holding teaching positions and lectureships, including at the Archive School in Marburg, interim professorships, and work in publishing, she has been teaching at TU Dortmund University since 2001. From 2011 to 2022, she also served as Vice-Rector for Diversity Management. From 2013 to 2020, she was a board member of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) Essen and a member of the Research Council of the University Alliance Ruhr. From 2014 to 2020, she was a member of the steering committee of RuhrFutur. From 2009 to 2017, she served on the board of the Association of German Art Historians, and from 2016 to 2019 on the board of CIHA (Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art).

She is co-speaker for the field "Science City and Cultural Metropolis" within Dortmund's Master Plan for Science and serves as the academic director of the Campus Stadt of TU Dortmund University at the Dortmunder U.

From 2012 to 2014, she was an expert for the project "Shared Histories for a Europe without Dividing Lines" at the Council of Europe. From 2016 to 2023, she was co-speaker of DoProfiL, Dortmund’s Profile for Inclusion-Oriented Teacher Education, also chairing the working group "Cultural Participation". She chairs the advisory board of "Kirchturmdenken. Sacred Buildings in Rural Areas: Anchor Points of Local Development and Nodes of Regional Development", is a member of the working group "Heritage Education" of the German National Committee for Monument Protection, and leads the project "Route Mittelalter Ruhr".

Her research focuses primarily on German and Dutch art of the 15th to 17th centuries, art and cultural transfer in the Hanseatic region, urban culture, and cultural heritage in intercultural perspectives. She has led numerous educational projects, which also serve as experimental spaces for research and teaching.