Talvacchia is the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Art History Emeritus at the University of Connecticut.
There, she wrote a thesis on the Italian Futurist artists Giacomo Balla and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
[2] Her doctoral dissertation was on the work of Giulio Romano from the Ducal Palace in Mantua, under the supervision of Professor Kurt Forster.
[3] A scholar of Renaissance art, Talvacchia has taught at the University of Connecticut since graduating from Stanford.
[5] From 2016 to 2019, Talvacchia served a stint as the Director of the School of Visual Arts at the University of Oklahoma, succeeding Mary Jo Watson.