Our blog posting took a short respite over the past few months, as we said a fond farewell and welcomed new members to our original Team Taxidermy.
Associate conservator Julia Sybalsky presents a Certificate of Recognition to conservation pre-program intern Ersang Ma for her hard work during this project. AMNH/D. Finnin
It was bittersweet to say goodbye and good luck to our pre-program intern Ersang Ma, who has been working with the team since summer 2014. Ersang was an essential troubleshooter, tireless preparer of samples, and diligent manager of data. To honor her work, Ersang was awarded an American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Volunteer Appreciation Award at a recent Museum reception. Ersang leaves the project to attend the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation this fall.
The former associate conservator for the Natural Science Collections Conservation (NSCC) lab and the In Their True Colors project blog writer extraordinaire, Beth Nunan, left the Museum to pursue new conservation opportunities. Thank you for all of your hard work and organization, Beth!
Former project conservator Julia Sybalsky moved into the associate conservator role for the NSCC lab. Julia began working in the conservation lab as a graduate student intern in 2010, continued as graduate fellow, and subsequently became the project conservator. In addition to her new duties as associate conservator for the NSCC lab, she will continue work on this project to interpret data, carry out investigations at the Yale University Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, and provide troubleshooting support.
Project Conservator Fran Ritchie (left). AMNH/E. Ma
The Team welcomed new project conservator Fran Ritchie in the spring. Fran was a previous pre-program intern in the NSCC lab (2009-2010) and has continued pursuing experiences conserving natural science collections. Now that Fran has joined the project, she carries out analysis at AMNH and is responsible for much of the dissemination of project findings. This dissemination will culminate in a Care & Conservation of Taxidermy workshop to be held at an upcoming Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) conference at the conclusion of the project (2017). Exact details will be announced in future posts.
In the fall the Project will welcome Caitlin Richeson as our new pre-program intern. Caitlin will assist with sample preparation, data interpretation, and workshop organization. It will be an exciting time as data continues to accumulate and the workshop begins to take shape.
Upcoming blog posts will get back to the project information, including how we were able to troubleshoot our new Q-SUN Xenon Test Chamber to collect our first few rounds of sample data!
In Their True Colors 