Kaila Howell (born in California, USA) is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University. She works on art, aesthetics, and image theory from the eighteenth century to the present day, with particular emphasis on Romanticism and the intersections between art and philosophy. Research interests include art pedagogy, value theory, text-image relations, mereology, and process philosophy.

During her stay at Wiepersdorf, she will continue to work on her doctoral dissertation. With focus on the early Romantic artist Philipp Otto Runge, her dissertation explores artistic engagements with the philosophical notion of (self-)formation (Bildung).

Additional projects include those on female genius and the art of paper cutting. Howell is also an avid writer currently at work on a collection of poems and short stories.