Victoria Rovine holds a joint appointment in the School of Art and Art History and the Center for African Studies.  

She received her MA and PhD (1998) from Indiana University. From 1995-2004, she was Curator of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, where she mounted more than thirty exhibitions of African and other non-Western art. She also taught courses at the University of Iowa and at Grinnell College. She was Assistant Curator of African Art at the Brooklyn Museum from 1993-1995.

Her doctoral research was based in Mali, where she explored the revival of traditional textiles as part of the contemporary art and fashion scenes in that country. Her book on the subject, Bogolan: Shaping Culture through Cloth in Contemporary Mali, was published by Smithsonian Institution Press in 2001. It has just been republished in an updated edition by Indiana University Press (2008) as part of its prestigious African Expressive Cultures series. She has also published numerous book chapters and articles on textiles, dress, and contemporary arts in Africa. Her current research concerns African fashion designers in global markets and the influence of African forms on Western fashion designers, past and present. 

She teaches a wide range of courses, including "Art, Culture, and Power in Africa;" "Art and Colonialism;" "Clothing and Textiles in Africa; " Contemporary African Art;" "African Humanities;" and "Arts of Southern Africa."

In 2007, she received the UF International Educator of the Year Award in the junior faculty category.