William Schwaller is an art historian, curator, and museum professional whose research and teaching focus on modern and contemporary art of the Americas with a particular focus on transnational artistic discourses about nature, ecology, and technology. His current research focuses on the Centro de Arte y Comunicación as a catalyst for and promoter of experimental and conceptual artistic practices across the Americas from the 1960s to the 1980s. His work focuses on the early emergence of arte ecológico (environmental art) and its unique exploration of national and Latin American identity, political ecology, and conceptual and post-studio artistic practices that emphasized interdisciplinary experimentation with science and technology.

He is a founding member of the curatorial collective Big Ramp in Philadelphia and has organized several group exhibitions, including Aliento Corporal/Corporeal Breath and We are all compost. Run by art historians, painters, and sculptors, Big Ramp champions genre- and medium-defying interdisciplinary artists.

His work has been published on Smarthistory.org and Oxford Art Online. He is a Fulbright scholar, and his research has been funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Institute for Studies in Latin American Art, and the Getty Research Institute. He has worked previously at the Berman Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. He has taught at Swarthmore College, Saint Joseph’s University, Drexel University, Arcadia University, and Temple University. He earned a PhD from Temple University and a BA with Honors from Grinnell College.