Olivia Crough is a PhD Candidate in Film and Visual Studies. She writes and teaches about 20th-century art and public media in the Americas, Europe, and former Soviet Union, with emphasis on activism and the politics of "realism," gender, and internationalism.

Her dissertation focuses on the work of three artists—Varvara Stepanova (Moscow), Sarah Minter (Mexico City), and Shu Lea Cheang (New York/Taiwan)—and their uses of photomontage, betamax video, and public-access television. 

Olivia’s research has been supported by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), and a Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship. At Harvard she has been a teaching fellow in AFVS, research fellow at the CCVA, and graduate curatorial intern at the Harvard Art Museums. Recent publications include texts for Art in America, e-flux, MoMA, The Cooper Union, the Beirut Art Center (BAC), and the Busch-Reisinger Museum.