ABM 2021 MEETING
The virtual ABM 2021 meeting aims to bring together a balanced community of experts for a dynamic forum for exchange. The goal of the ABM 2021 meeting is to nurture and grow the community that was established in 2018. Key to the meeting is the development of an updated website, which will serve as a communication hub to identify connections between advanced scientific approaches (e.g., DNA, mass-spectrometry, and antibody-based) and open research questions, thereby fostering focused and mutually beneficial collaborations, as well as providing educational resources.
Lara Kaplan
Objects Conservator and Affiliated Assistant Professor
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation

Winterthur, USA
MEMBER INFORMATION
Lara Kaplan is an objects conservator at Winterthur Museum and an affiliated assistant professor at the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC). Since 2017, she has led the organic objects portion of WUDPAC’s first-year conservation curriculum and beginning in 2019 came on board as a full-time objects conservator at Winterthur Museum. She earned an M.S. in art conservation from WUDPAC in 2003; interned at the Sheldon Jackson Museum, the Arizona State Museum, and the National Park Service Western Archeological and Conservation Center; and held a post-graduate Mellon Fellowship at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Prior to working at Winterthur, she ran a private conservation practice in Baltimore, Maryland. Ms. Kaplan’s research interests include organic materials, especially skin and leather, the treatment of plastics, and ethical considerations for non-traditional collections.
Overlooked Organics in Decorative Arts: Cataloging Skin-Based, Skeletal, and Hard Keratinous Animal Tissues