Jane Aiken could never turn down a challenge. In spite of contracting polio during her senior year of high school, she graduated first in her class. She then majored in art history at Wellesley and and earned a master’s degree at Columbia in 1962. After marrying and raising three children, she received her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1985 at the age of 47. She taught Renaissance art history at Virginia Tech and published numerous articles on subjects ranging from Da Vinci’s art and science to Alberti’s system of proportions to Massaccio’s Trinity Fresco before becoming professor emeritus in 2001. According to the death notice in the Hartford Courant, she “expressed a lifelong concern for social justice and ministering to the needs of others.”

In addition to her academic success, she devoted herself to social change, spearheading the Art on Campus Project with her friend Jeanette Bowker. She also funded entire houses for Habitat for Humanity and the Episcopal Relief and Development Fund.