The UCLA/Getty program welcomes Dr. Caitlin O’Grady, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation Education in the Art Conservation Dept. at the University of Delaware. Caitlin is an objects conservator with a specialty in archaeological materials and a conservation scientist with research interests in nondestructive analytical technologies and technical reconstructions of original manufacturing technologies and artifact deterioration to inform conservation. She received a B.A. with Honors in Art History with minors in Chemistry and Economics from Case Western Reserve University (magna cum laude), an M.A. in Art History and Advanced Certificate in Conservation from New York University, and, a M.S. and Ph.D. in Heritage Conservation Science from the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Arizona. Her dissertation research focused on the use of portable x-ray fluorescence analysis for the interpretation and preservation of museum artifacts. Caitlin has also worked as a conservator on several excavations and is currently the managing director of conservation for the Kaymakçı Archaeological Project (KAP) in Turkey, which is a project run by Dr. Christopher Roosevelt and Dr. Christina Luke of Boston University.
As part of her Mellon Fellowship, Caitlin will be with us for two weeks learning about the structure of our conservation program and observing the different teaching styles of the faculty. She will also be lecturing and teaching in two classes. One lecture will focus on stone conservation and have students looking at different consolidants and adhesives used for stone. Caitlin will also be teaching about the desalination of ceramics and include a hands on session where students try out different methods for desalinating ceramics. In her first week here, she gave a lunch time talk at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology titled “Lost Walls/Murals Rebuilt: Interdisciplinary approaches to the Conservation of Preclassic Maya Wall Paintings from San Bartolo, Guatemala”. This talk is based on a current collaboration with Dr. Heather Hurst, Skidmore College, on the preservation and analysis of murals from the Maya site of San Bartolo in Guatemala.
We are excited to have Caitlin here and to have her teach in our program. We hopes she enjoys her time with us and her escape from the cold east coast weather (and she says she did)!
UCLA/Getty Conservation Program 