2021 STEERING COMMITTEE
ORGANIZERS
JULIE ARSLANOGLU
Research Scientist
Department of Scientific Research
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY, USA
Julie Arslanoglu is a Research Scientist at the Met. She investigates paints, coatings, adhesives, and the organic materials found in artworks across all ages using spectroscopy (FTIR), mass-spectrometric (GC/MS, Py-GC/MS. MALDI, LCMS) and immunological techniques (ELISA), with emphasis on natural and synthetic polymer identification and degradation. Her research interests include interactions between pigments and binders, especially proteins, polysaccharides, lipids, and their mixtures.
MARGARET HOLBEN ELLIS
Eugene Thaw Professor Emerita
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
New York, NY, USA
Professor Ellis teaches the conservation treatment of prints and drawings and technical connoisseurship for art historians. She served as founding Director of the Thaw Conservation Center at the Morgan Library & Museum until January 2017. She is a Fellow and current President of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC), a Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC), a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and an Accredited Conservator/Restorer of the Institute of Conservation (ICON). She was Editor for Philosophical and Historical Issues in the Conservation of Works of Art on Paper (2014; Getty Conservation Institute); the 2nd edition of her book, The Care of Prints and Drawings appeared in 2017.
STEERING COMMITTEE
ERMA HERMENS
Senior Researcher in Technical Art History, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/
Professor in Studio Practice and Technical Art History
History of Art Department, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
University of Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Erma Hermens is the Rijksmuseum Professor in studio practice and technical art history at the University of Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum, Department of Conservation of Science, where she works with interdisciplinary teams, liaising between curators, conservators and scientists, combining art historical and contextual research of objects, their composite materials, and methods of making, with scientific analytical data. She is from March 2021-March 22, Visiting Porfessor at the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities, Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice. Present projects CT-scanning for Art: from Images to Patterns (IMPACT4Art); Imaging, Identification and interpretation of Glass in Paint (I3Glassp); Down to the Ground: Colored grounds in Netherlandish 16th and 17th-century painting. She is presently writing a review report of the field of Technical Art History commissioned by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
CHRIS MASON
Professor of Genomics, Physiology, and Biophysics
Weill Cornell Medicine
Director of the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction
New York, NY
The Mason laboratory develops and deploys new biochemical and computational methods in functional genomics to elucidate the genetic basis of human disease and physiology. We create and deploy novel techniques in genomics and algorithms for: tumor evolution, genome evolution, DNA and RNA modifications, and genome/epigenome engineering. We also work closely with NIST/FDA to build international standards for these methods (SEQC2, IMMSA, and Epigenomics QC groups), to ensure clinical-quality genome measurements and editing. We also work with NASA and other space agencies to build integrated molecular portraits of genomes, epigenomes, transcriptomes, and metagenomes for astronauts, which help establish the molecular foundations and genetic defenses for enabling long-term human spaceflight.
Dr. Mason has won the NIH’s Transformative R01 Award, the NASA Group Achievement Award, the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance Young Investigator award, the Hirschl-Weill-Caulier Career Scientist Award, the Vallee Scholar Award, the CDC Honor Award for Standardization of Clinical Testing, and the WorldQuant Foundation Scholar Award. He was named as one of the “Brilliant Ten” Scientists by Popular Science, featured as a TEDMED speaker, and called “The Genius of Genetics” by 92Y. He has >230 peer-reviewed papers and scholarly works that have been featured on the covers of Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Microbiology, and Neuron, as well as legal briefs cited by the U.S. District Court and U.S. Supreme Court. Coverage of his work has also appeared on the covers of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, TIME, The LA Times, and across many media (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, PBS, NASA, NatGeo). He is an inventor on four patents, co-founded five biotechnology start-up companies, and serves as an advisor to 17 others, as well as 3 non-profits. He lives with his daughter and wife in Brooklyn, NY.
CONSTANTINE PETRIDIS
Chair, Department of Arts of Africa and the Americas & Curator of African Art
The Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL, USA
Constantine (Costa) Petridis has served as chair and curator of Arts of Africa at the Art Institute of Chicago since November 2016. A corresponding member of the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences, he earned his PhD in art history from Ghent University in his native Belgium. Prior to coming to Chicago, he held research, teaching, and curatorial positions at the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The author of several journal articles, book chapters, exhibition catalogues, and monographs, his latest publications include the book Luluwa: Central African Art Between Heaven and Earth (2018) and the edited volume Speaking of Objects: African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (2020).
AMY TJIONG
Associate Conservator
American Museum of Natural History
New York, NY, USA
Amy Tjiong is an Associate Conservator in the Anthropology Department of the American Museum of Natural History working on the renovation of the Northwest Coast Hall. Her professional interests include researching the properties and uses of cultural heritage materials and working to support community-led museum practices. She has written articles and presented on the significance of gut skin in Yupik communities and collaboration within the conservation profession. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center.
CAROLINE TOKARSKI
Professor at the University of Bordeaux-CNRS UMR5248 CBMN
Researcher of the Institut Universitaire de France
Head of the Proteome Platform of Bordeaux
Bordeaux, FRANCE
Caroline Tokarski is an analytical chemist specialized in high resolution mass spectrometry. Her research is focused on methodological developments for analysis of organic material from native or transformed biological samples. She adapted omics techniques to cultural heritage samples for accurate identification of proteins/lipids/polysaccharides, their modifications and their biological origins. Her current work is focused on organic networking and degradation mechanisms in Cultural Heritage samples.
FRANK TRUJILLO
Drue Heinz Book Conservator
The Morgan Library & Museum
New York, NY, USA
Frank Trujillo is the Drue Heinz Book Conservator in the Thaw Conservation Center at the Morgan Library & Museum. He holds a MSLIS with an Advanced Certificate in Conservation from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA from the University of Notre Dame. His research has focused on the materials and techniques of medieval manuscripts with a particular focus on French Romanesque bindings and the ninth and tenth century Coptic bindings collection at the Morgan.
COORDINATOR
ALEKSANDRA POPOWICH
Research Associate
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, NY, USA
Aleks Popowich has been at The Met since 2020 where she studies the many uses of proteins, lipids, and gums in works of art using mass spectrometry. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute focusing on the characterization of decorative metal threads and the development of gilding technology, from Medieval to contemporary. She holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Alberta, where she studied the interactions of carcinogenic arsenic compounds with proteins using mass spectrometry and immunoassays, and a BSc in chemistry from the University of British Columbia. Aleks has also assisted the Conservation Departments of the Royal Alberta Museum (Edmonton, Canada) and the Glenbow (Calgary, Canada).
STUDENT COORDINATOR
ERIN FITTERER
Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Time-Based Media Conservation
Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
New York, NY, USA