Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann is Frederick Marquand Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. His focus is on European art and architecture from 1500 to 1800 in a global context, world art history, and the geography and historiography of art. He participated in the fellowship committee of the European Research Council, and was a reader for the Fellowship Committee of the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University.

Kaufmann has worked to revise the structure of the National Committee of the History of Art, of which he is vice president. He wrote the basic script and advised on a film on made by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, to accompany their exhibition on the artist. The film, translated into Italian, was also shown at the Palazzo Reale, Milan, at an exhibition devoted to Arcimboldo, and received a documentary film prize. Kaufmann is the author of numerous books and articles, including Arcimboldo: Visual Jokes, Natural History, and Still-Life Painting (Chicago, 2010). He is a member of the Swedish, Polish, and Flemish Academy of Sciences and has received the Palacy Medal from the Czech Academy of Sciences, among other honors. He was awarded the degree of Doctor philosophiae honoris causa by the Technische Universität Dresden in May 2011, cited for the quality of his scholarship, particularly on Central Europe, and its application in establishing a more global history of art, as well as for his services for international collaboration and mutual understanding among nations.