Samuel Morse is Howard and Martha Mitchel Professor of the History of Art and Asian Languages and Civilizations at Amherst College. Dr. Morse is a specialist in Japanese Buddhist art, and serves as Consulting Curator for Japanese Art at the Smith College Museum of Art, where he has curated exhibitions on the arts of the Japanese tea ceremony and on contemporary Japanese art. In addition he has organized exhibitions on Kitagawa Utamaro for the Mead Art Museum (2006), on the art of Allen Say the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (2007)  and on Japanese Buddhist art and ritual for the Katonah Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1996-1997).  For six years, he was chair of the Board of Directors for the Clark Center for Japanese Art in Hanford, California. He has been a visiting researcher at the Tokyo National Research Institute of Culture Properties and a visiting professor Yale University. He earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University.