B.A. Harrington

B.A. Harrington serves as Assistant Professor of Art and Director of the Wood Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania within the Department of Art and Design, College of Arts, Humanities, Media, and Public Affairs.

Her academic credentials include traditional cabinet and furniture making training at Boston's North Bennet Street School, complemented by dual master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison: a Master of Fine Arts in wood and a Master's in art history.

Harrington's research recontextualizes historical furniture through a feminist lens, focusing on early American forms designed for women to shift scholarly attention from male production narratives to domestic usage contexts. She pioneers interdisciplinary work connecting cognitive science with traditional craft, investigating how embodied knowledge in material-specific skills can transform pedagogical approaches in craft education.

Her sole documented publication—a 2013 essay on New England Hadley chests in "Women and the Material Culture of Death"—exemplifies her methodology of merging material culture analysis with gender studies, establishing foundational work for her current cognitive-science-informed craft research.

As Director of IUP's Wood Center, Harrington oversees a dedicated facility advancing woodworking, furniture design, and craft pedagogy through hands-on educational programming.