Rachel Mader completed her PhD in 2006 with the dissertation Beruf Künstlerin. Strategien, Konstruktion und Kategorien am Beispiel Paris 1870-1900 (Women as Professional Artists: Strategies, Construction and Categories Using the Example of Paris from 1870 to 1900). She was awarded the 2006 Deubner Prize for her article "Meister der Leuchtstoffröhren – Wie Dan Flavin zu seinem Stil kam" (Master of Fluorescent Lights: How Dan Flavin Arrived at His Style). She lived in London researching for the Organising Innovation project, in New York researching on the theme of collective artistic creation in the 1980s and in Paris researching for her dissertation. She was awarded various scholarships, including the University of Basel interdisciplinary PhD programme Wissenschaft – Geschlecht – Symbolische Ordnung from 2002 to 2005.
Currently, Rachel Mader is also working as a mentor at art schools and was involved in practice-based research projects (Owning Online Art – Study for a Netart Gallery). In addition, she works as critic (Springerin, Camera Austria), curator (including Shedhalle and Belluard Bollwerk Festival Fribourg) and organiser of conferences and artist talks. Since 2008, she has been member of the foundation board of GegenwART at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern.
Her main areas of research and teaching are contemporary art, art and politics, research into the art system, arts and cultural policy, ambivalence as an artistic strategy, feminist history of art and criticism.

Selected Publications
Editor of 2011. Kollektive Autorschaft. Alternatives Handeln und Denkmodell, Sammelband. (Kunstgeschichten der Gegenwart), Bern et al.: Peter Lang.
2011. Nameless Science – künstlerische Forschung zwischen Institutionalisierung und kreativer Autonomie. In: Nina Zschocke (ed.) Para-/Proto-/Pseudo-. Präfixe zur Relation von Kunst- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Tagungsband, Berlin and Zürich: diaphanes.
2011. Discourse star Gillick. In: Andrea Sick und Mona Schieren (eds.) Look at me. Celebrity Culture at the Venice Art Biennale. Nürnberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst.
2011. Low Tech and Other Fundamentals. Research into the Basics of Representation. In: Art 'In-Formation'. Communication Aesthetics and Network Structures in Art from the 1960s to the Present. Akten der Tagung in Weserburg – Museum for Modern Art, Bremen, 30 November - 1 Devember 2007.
Editor of 2010. Ambiguität in der Kunst – Typen und Funktionen eines anhaltend aktuellen Topos. Tagungsakten. With Verena Krieger. Köln and Wien: Böhlau.
Produktive Simulationen. Über Ambivalenzen in der zeitgenössischen Kunst am Beispiel von Neo Rauch, Aernout Mik und Santiago Sierra. In: Rachel Mader and Verena Krieger (eds.) Ambiguität in der Kunst – Typen und Funktionen eines anhaltend aktuellen Topos. Tagungsakten. Köln and Wien: Böhlau, pp. 221-236.
2010. Neue Konstellationen? Über die wachsende Bedeutung der Kunstförderung im sich wandelnden Kunstbetrieb. In: Kunstkredit Basel Stadt 1990-2009, Basel: Kunstkredit Basel Stadt, pp. 19-22.
2009. Unentschieden. Paradoxien des Hypes von Feminismen in Kunst und Kultur. Themenheft FrauenKunstWissenschaft. Editor.
2009. Kommentare aus dem Offside – Netzkunst und das Kunstsystem. In: Owning Online Art. Study for a Net-Art-Gallery, publication for the KTI Research project. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ooart.ch/publikation/ [Accessed 1 September 2011].
2007. With Wolfgang Brückle. Zeitgenossenschaft. Kritische Berichte, issue 3, pp. 7-11.
2007. Meister der Leuchtstoffröhren – Wie Dan Flavin zu seinem Stil kam. In: Kunsthistorische Arbeitsblätter, Köln: Deubner-Verlag.
2004. Alfredo Jaar: The Mise-en-scène is fundamental – Ein Gespräch mit Wolfgang Brückle und Rachel Mader. Camera Austria, issue 86, pp. 41-47.