Lara Kaplan

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.