Dr. Jeff Karl Kowalski is an expert on Maya art and architecture. He is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at Northern Illinois University, where he taught from 1982 to 2015, after which he taught selected courses at Temple University. Professor Kowalski has worked for many years in the Maya region, with an emphasis on the majestic site of Uxmal, Yucatán, as well as two seasons spent assisting with work at Copán, Honduras. Uxmal’s impressive Nunnery Quadrangle palace group is the focus of his current research. Professor Kowalski has published extensively on the archaeology, art, and epigraphy of the Maya and their Mesoamerican neighbors, including his book The House of the Governor, A Maya Palace at Uxmal, Yucatan, Mexico (U. of Oklahoma Press, 1987) and Mesoamerican Architecture as a Cultural Symbol (Oxford U., 1999). For decades he has periodically led study tours of the Maya region, including the AIA’s Jungle Kingdoms tour in 2019, and he has given many public lectures and presented his research at many conferences.
Professor Emeritus of Art History at Northern Illinois University
