Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt (PhD Washington University in St. Louis) is Professor of Art and Art History at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Her research and teaching focus on representations of race and gender, material culture, and the role of art in spiritual formation. She has published scholarly articles and chapters on contemporary African American photographers, Hawaiian landscape painting, and material culture of the Japanese American internment. Her writing has also appeared in Christianity Today and the Asian American Christian Collaborative. Her greatest joy, however, is teaching, and she loves the challenge of introducing beginners to the delight of engaging art. Her first book, Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking at and Learning from Art (Baker Academic), received a 2024 Christianity Today Award of Merit (Culture and the Arts) and The Gospel Coalition 2023 Book Award for Arts & Culture. Her latest book, Look Like a Lady: Five Visual Tropes of Womanhood and How To See Ourselves Differently (Brazos Press), explores art history’s visual scripts—and counterstories—for women.

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Elissa has navigated the joys and tensions of a hybrid identity as a biracial Japanese-white woman. She now lives with her husband and two sons in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they enjoy hiking the Cumberland Plateau, biking along the river, and hosting big parties with good food.