Roland Betancourt is an art historian whose research spans the art and culture of the Byzantine Empire to modern and contemporary popular culture, with a particular interest in the power of images and the intersection between the history of technology and sensory experience.

He is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art from 2024-2026, a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow, and holds the distinction of Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Betancourt’s prime interests revolve around the history of science and technology, the built environment, and the power of images. His most recent work, the book Disneyland and the Rise of Automation (Princeton University Press, 2026), looks at how the modern amusement park aestheticized the automation of industry in the second half of the 20th century, acclimating people to its systems and practices.

Betancourt is the author of four additional books, including The Secrets We Keep: Hidden Histories of the Byzantine Empire (Getty Research Institute, 2024), Performing the Gospels in Byzantium: Sight, Sound, and Space in the Divine Liturgy (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Sight, Touch, and Imagination in Byzantium (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and the lauded Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 2020), which won the Jerome E. Singerman Book Prize from the Medieval Academy of America.

His essays have appeared in well-known public and academic outlets such as The Washington Post, Scientific American, The San Francisco Chronicle, TIME, The Conversation, Literary Hub, and The Advocate.