b7dc7019-3f88-4634-9ab0-21b0855675ac Trish Biers Curator Cambridge, UK Previous Next All members MEMBER INFORMATION Trish is the Curatorial Manager of the Duckworth laboratory (biological anthropology) in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. She teaches in the Department about ethics, repatriation, treatment of the dead, and osteology. She is currently the Museum Representative, on the Board of Trustees, British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) and organises their Taskforce on the Trade and Sale of Human Remains. Her research interests include ancient and modern death work, osteoarchaeology and paleopathology, and museum studies focusing on the curation, ethics, and display of the dead. ABM CONFERENCES ABM MEMBER EVENTS ABM Roundtable Discussion - August 2024 Roundtable Speaker Perceptions of Human Remains - Continued Following the overwhelming response to our March 27th session. We are pleased to announce an upcoming online Roundtable discussion on the topic of human remains in museums, cultural centers, and religious spaces. This session will offer an opportunity to examine the ongoing ethical and practical challenges surrounding the display, handling, storage, treatment, and scientific analysis of human remains. It will also provide a space to share diverse institutional experiences and foster thoughtful dialogue across disciplines. 
Our goal is to generate actionable insights that can support professionals navigating these responsibilities, and to encourage a respectful, informed approach to working with human remains in varied contexts. We welcome participants from across the field to join us for what promises to be a meaningful and necessary conversation. Explore PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS

MEMBERS Reset Filters Filter by surname A B C D E F G H I J K L M N P R S T V W Y Laura Allen Member Information Participant 2021 Cecil Krarup Andersen Member Information Team Presenter 2021 Lauren Audi Member Information Participant 2023, Poster Presenter 2021 Beatrice Behlen Member Information Team Presenter 2023 Seminar Series Presenter 2023 Aniko Bezur Member Information Team Presenter 2021 Ilaria Bonaduce Member Information Participant 2018, 2021 Nylah Byrd Member Information Community Coordinator 2023 Ellen Carrlee Member Information Team Presenter 2021 Yueh-Ting Chiu Member Information Poster Presenter 2021 Lauren Clark Member Information Participant 2023 Matthew Collins Member Information Team Presenter 2021 Annamaria Cucina Member Information Poster Presenter 2021 Lauren Dalecky Member Information Team Presenter 2023 Sofie Dierickx Member Information Poster Presenter 2021 Kate Duffy Member Information Participant 2021 Sarah Fiddyment Member Information Poster Presenter 2021 Cecilia Flocco Member Information Poster Presenter 2021 Niv Allon Member Information Participant 2021 Ruth Ann Armitage Member Information Participant 2023 Lyudmyla Babadzhanova Member Information Participant 2023, Admin Coordinator 2023-2025 Daniella Berman Member Information Participant 2023 Trish Biers Member Information Speaker April 2025 Roundtable Caroline Bouvier Member Information Participant 2021 Sheila Canby Member Information Participant 2018 Laura Cartechini Member Information Speaker 2018 Sue Ann Chui Member Information Steering Committee 2018 Elizabeth Cleland Member Information Participant 2021 Laura Courto Member Information Poster Presenter 2021 Matt Cushman Member Information Participant 2018 Jan Dekker Member Information Poster Presenter 2021 Patrick Dietemann Member Information Team Presenter 2021 Margaret Holben Ellis Member Information Co-organizer 2018, 2021 Eugenia Geddes Da Filicaia Member Information Participant 2021 Manu Frederickx Member Information Participant 2021 Alba Alvarez Member Information Participant 2021 Julie Arslanoglu Member Information Co-organizer 2018-2023 Camilla Jul Bastholm Member Information Seminar Series Presenter 2024 Barbara Berrie Member Information Steering Committee 2018 Kyna Biggs Member Information Participant 2023 Lisa Bruno Member Information Participant 2021 Anthony Caragiulo Member Information Participant 2021 Oi Yan Michelle Chan Member Information Team Presenter 2023 Tami Lasseter Clare Member Information Team Presenter 2021 Timothy Cleland Member Information Speaker 2018 Ashley Coutu Member Information Poster Presenter 2021 Elke Cwiertnia Member Information Participant 2021 Adam DiBattista Member Information Participant 2023 Seminar Series Presenter 2022 Laurence Douny Member Information Member Conversations Presenter 2024 Steering Committee 2023 Jean Evans Member Information Participant 2018 Robin Fleming Member Information Speaker April 2025 Roundtable Jessica French Member Information Seminar Series Presenter 2024 First Prev 1 2 3 4 1 ... 1 2 3 4 ... 4 Next Last

Events run by and for Art Bio Matter members. Participate in open conversations, seminars and round tables. COMMUNITY Projects Publications Member Events Members MEMBER EVENTS Member events are specially organized by Art Bio Matters member and volunteers. They are intended to strengthen connections between members and help them find new colleagues to discuss research questions and concerns. Depending on the format, members will present current research projects, share open questions, and lead exchanges of information where the main goal is to improve the ways in which we understand biological materials in material heritage culture. The following are members-only events. Registration links will be sent directly to ABM members through Slack and Email. SEMINAR SERIES Join us for monthly informal presentations on topics in biological material studies integrating science with conservation, history, culture, and/or other human sciences. Seminars take place every third Thursday and feature a 20-minute presentation by the speaker(s), followed by lively discussion with ABM community members. This platform allows you to share your area of interest, ongoing project, or seek collaboration outside your field. Submissions are reviewed continuously. Can't attend live? Recordings are available for one month to ABM members. In-depth 3D analysis of Iron Age mineralized textiles To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. Clémence Iacconi Archaeological textile remains from ancient times are rare, as they are perishable in most environments. In temperate climates, the main preservation mechanism is “mineralization”, based on the nucleation and growth of mineral phases formed from metal cations from an adjacent archaeological artifact. It can preserve morphological information in the form of a cast or imprint of textile shapes. In recent years, the use of synchrotron X-ray microtomography (µCT) has greatly improved our understanding of the physico-chemical mechanisms leading to their preservation. Millimeter to centimeter-sized mineralized textiles from Iron Age (8th-5th century BC) sites in France and the Netherlands were analyzed by μCT to reconstruct their internal morphology. The automated processing of μCT data based on fiber orientation, which we developed, enabled a detailed multi-scale study, even in their highly degraded state. Thursday, February 20, 2025, 11:00 am ET Learn more ROUND TABLE Q&A round tables offer a unique opportunity to tap into the expertise within our diverse community. A small group of ABM members will each share current or on-going questions related to the biological materials of an object(s) in a brief (5-minute) description or presentation. This is followed by dynamic discussions with attendees, fostering knowledge exchange, brain storming, and opportunities for collaboration. Perceptions of Human Remains - Continued To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. Robin Fleming, Annelize Kotze, and Trish Biers Following the overwhelming response to our March 27th session. We are pleased to announce an upcoming online Roundtable discussion on the topic of human remains in museums, cultural centers, and religious spaces. This session will offer an opportunity to examine the ongoing ethical and practical challenges surrounding the display, handling, storage, treatment, and scientific analysis of human remains. It will also provide a space to share diverse institutional experiences and foster thoughtful dialogue across disciplines. 
Our goal is to generate actionable insights that can support professionals navigating these responsibilities, and to encourage a respectful, informed approach to working with human remains in varied contexts. We welcome participants from across the field to join us for what promises to be a meaningful and necessary conversation. Thursday, April 24, 2025, 11:00 am ET ABM MEMBER CONVERSATIONS These informal conversations will explore the cross-disciplinary collaboration and research opportunities that define ABM. They aim to enhance our understanding of the diverse roles held by ABM members, spur collaborations, try out ideas, and explore new areas of study. Each conversation features two members, each from a different specialty (e.g., a curator and a scientist), who have not collaborated but have overlapping but not identical research interests. They will engage in a conversation based on three questions for each other, followed by audience discussion and questions. ABM Member Conversations - March 2025 To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key. Kat McFarlin & Cynthia Hahn In this conservation event, Kat McFarlin and Cynthia Hahn will engage in discussion about how practices around interacting with bodily remains vary across cultures and time periods. Cynthia Hahn is Distinguished Professor of Art History at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of CUNY. She has published extensively on reliquaries (including those of other cultures, but primarily Western medieval). Katherine "Kat" McFarlin is a cultural heritage conservator at the American Museum of Natural History, primarily supporting the Musem's Human Remains Collection Care Program. Thursday, March 27th, 2025 11:00 am ET OTHER WAYS TO PARTICIPATE ABM members get to participate in a variety of ways. Don't miss your chance to network! Why join the Art Bio Matters community? Members of the ABM community enjoy many benefits, regardless of their area of interest. Our website and Slack workspace have something for everyone: Communicate through the ABM Slack workspace Connect with colleagues, discuss research questions, and network in the ABM Slack community. Visit our Join the Community tab for more information. Join the Community Participate in an ABM meeting ABM has biennial conferences sharing ongoing research through a dynamic forum of exchange. Visit the ABM Meetings tab for more information. ABM Meetings Build the ABM website We need you to develop new content for the ABM website. Please email info@artbiomatters.org or message in Slack if you are interested to do any of the following: Share a project Provide a link to your publications, projects, or Opportunities to share with potential partners. Educate and reach out Provide a link to a case study or video that applies to our Materials, Instrumentation, Ethics, and Sampling pages. Anchor 1 Why join the Art Bio Matters community? Members of the ABM community enjoy many benefits, regardless of their area of interest. Our website and Slack workspace have something for everyone: Access ABM 2018, 2021, and 2023 conference recordings and background materials. Join us and become a part of the ABM c ommunity

Participate, expand you network and have some fun with these events on biological materials in heritage. OPPORTUNITIES Events Fellowships Funding Internships Jobs Studentships Mentorship Workshops + Courses Categories COMING UP These events are coming up soon! If you have an event to post, please email info@artbiomatters.org . No events or deadlines coming up now. Check again later! PAST EVENTS These events have already passed. If you like what you see, don't miss upcoming events!

Art Bio Matters is a cross-disciplinary hub for biological materials research in cultural heritage. Welcome to ABM A Cross-Disciplinary Hub for Biological Materials Research in Cultural Heritage About ABM Education Community Meetings Resources Members Opportunities MISSION STATEMENT ART BIO MATTERS (ABM) provides a stimulating forum in which to explore current and new directions in the study of biological materials found in cultural heritage collections. Communication and partnerships are facilitated by a robust website, dedicated Slack channel, and interactive Art Bio Matters Meetings. While the core disciplines of ABM are science, curatorial/cultural history, and conservation, ABM welcomes other stakeholders involved in cultural heritage studies. A key aspect of the forum is the opportunity to discuss research at any stage of completion among a balanced community of experts in a format designed to promote collegial dialogue and debate. Read more about ABM ONSITE EVENT ABM 2023 ABM 2023 was an in-person meeting in NYC, continuing as a platform for open dialogue and debate between specialists interested in biological materials investigations of cultural heritage. Meetings EXPLORE ABM Projects Discover projects from the ABM community Explore Opportunities Explore opportunities for education, professional development, employment, funding, and more. Show more Events Stay connected to the most recent events with bimonthly ABM virtual presentations by ABM Members and other events of interest. Show more Join us and become a part of the ABM c ommunity

7b20846a-225e-4035-8d1c-5025e8830534 Robin Fleming Historian Boston, MA, USA Previous Next All members MEMBER INFORMATION Robin Fleming is Professor of History at Boston College. She earned her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She writes and teaches Roman and early medieval history, migration and mobility, material culture, and historical archaeology. She is the author of Kings and Lords in Conquest Britain (Cambridge University Press, 1993), Domesday Book and the Law (Cambridge University Press, 1998), Britain after Rome (Penguin, 2010), the Material Fall of Roman Britain (University of Pennsylvania, 2021), and has a book on dogs in Roman Britain forthcoming with Oxford University Press. She is currently working on a collaborative project investigating the early medieval cemetery at Alton, in Hampshire, U.K. The project aims to reevaluate the cemetery’s dating, material culture, and human remains. She was President of the Medieval Academy of America in 2023–24. She has been awarded a Guggenheim, has been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study and The Radcliffe Institute, and is a MacArthur Fellow. ABM CONFERENCES ABM MEMBER EVENTS PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS

c620e845-c334-4b78-88d9-399e0a1e6ad2 Annelize Kotze Social History Curator Cape Town, South Africa Previous Next All members MEMBER INFORMATION Annelize Kotze is a Social History Curator at the Iziko Museums of South Africa. She has a Masters degree in Archaeology from the University of Cape Town (UCT), focusing on cultural identity of Khoe, San and Coloured women. She is a member of the A/Xarra Restorative Justice Forum in the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS), at UCT where she sits on the Language, Human Remains, and Women’s Commissions. Annelize currently holds the title of President of the Commonwealth Association of Museums (CAM) and is the Chairperson of the Western Cape division of South Africa Museums Association (SAMA). She is a huge advocate for decolonising museum spaces , the most important of which is the reburial and return of ancestral remains as well as objects from communities still in museums, and having previously marginalised and silenced communities, a voice in spaces where they were misrepresented. ABM CONFERENCES ABM MEMBER EVENTS PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS

6ca9881d-0b6e-42e7-b1cd-4384621ef877 Ellen Carrlee Conservator, Alaska State Museum Juneau, AK, USA Previous Next All members MEMBER INFORMATION Ellen Carrlee has been working in Alaskan museums for twenty years and has been the conservator at the Alaska State Museum since 2006. She holds an M.A. in Art History and Art Conservation from New York University (2000) and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (2020). Her research interests include material culture made from plants and animals as well as collaborative projects that explore the networks of relationships among human and non-human agents. ABM CONFERENCES ABM 2021 Team Presenter The Chilkat Dye Project Explore Full Abstract ABM MEMBER EVENTS PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS

b1c7aabd-e25c-4858-bec8-dcb70694a962 Charlotte Hale Conservator Sherman Fairchild Center for Paintings Conservation The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, NY, USA Previous Next All members MEMBER INFORMATION Charlotte Hale received her training in the conservation of paintings at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and joined the Department of Paintings Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1987. Her publications include technical studies of works by Lorenzo Monaco, Giovanni Bellini, Velázquez, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Seurat. ABM CONFERENCES ABM 2018 Participant Art Bio Matters 2018 Conference Explore Full Abstract ABM MEMBER EVENTS PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS

ee43fc20-d781-4a44-b5c7-fc912a4c1bb2 Stefan Simon Director The Rathgen Research Laboratory The National Museums Berlin Berlin, Germany Previous Next All members MEMBER INFORMATION Stefan Simon is since 2005 Director of the Rathgen Research Laboratory with the National Museums Berlin. Trained as a heritage scientist, Simon earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich. He served as a Council Member and Vice President of ICCROM, the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property. As Inaugural Director of Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage and Director of the Yale’s Global ABM CONFERENCES ABM 2021 Poster Presenter Microbiome reveals history of human-interactions in the museum - a pilot project Explore Full Abstract ABM MEMBER EVENTS PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS Lukas M Simon [1], Cecilia Flocco [2], Franziska Burkart [2], Anika Methner [2], David Henke [3], Luise Rauer [4, 5 6], Christian L Müller [6], Johannes Vogel [7], Christiane Quaisser [7], Jörg Overmann 2, Stefan Simon [8] Microbial fingerprints reveal interaction between museum objects, curators, and visitors Microbial communities reside at the interface between humans and their environment. Whether the microbiome can be leveraged to gain information on human interaction with museum objects is unclear. To investigate this, we selected objects from the Museum für Naturkunde and the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin, Germany, varying in material and size. Using swabs, we collected 126 samples from natural and cultural heritage objects, which were analyzed through 16S rRNA sequencing. By comparing the microbial composition of touched and untouched objects, we identified a microbial signature associated with human skin microbes. Applying this signature to cultural heritage objects, we identified areas with varying degrees of exposure to human contact on the Ishtar gate and Sam'al gate lions. Furthermore, we differentiated objects touched by two different individuals. Our findings demonstrate that the microbiome of museum objects provides insights into the level of human contact, crucial for conservation, heritage science, and potentially provenance research. Explore