Karen Exell is Honorary Senior Research Associate at UCL Qatar, and a consultant at Qatar Museums. She directed the MA in Museum and Gallery Practice at UCL Qatar from 2011-2015, after teaching museums studies and holding curatorial positions in university museums in the UK for several years. She is currently involved in two Qatar National Research Fund NPRP projects, as a PI on project researching museum pedagogy in Qatar and the region, and as LPI on project exploring the concept of national identity in relation to the planned new National Museum of Qatar. Her recent publications include the co-edited volumes, Cultural Heritage in the Arabian Peninsula: Debates, Discourses and Practices (Ashgate, 2014) and Museums in Arabia: Transnational Practices and Regional Processes (Routledge, 2016). Her monograph, Modernity and the Museum in the Arabian Peninsula (Routledge) was published in April 2016.
Emma is based at the Institute of Archaeology (UCL), where she is working towards her PhD. She holds her first degree in classics (BA Oxford) and has completed a three-year postgraduate programme in archaeological and museum conservation (MA, MSc UCL). She has particular interests in ancient Greek and Roman sculpture and wall-paintings, and has completed practical placements in the conservation departments of the V&A (sculpture conservation) and the British Museum (stone, wall-paintings & mosaics conservation), as well as on-site in Abydos, Egypt. She has recently finished a research project on the conservation and technical investigation of a group of gilded wall-paintings housed at the British Museum, originally from the Roman Emperor Nero’s Golden House. For her PhD, she is investigating the conservation of plaster casts of ancient sculptures, focusing on the casts held by the Greek and Roman Department at the British Museum. This involves examining how casts are valued and how surface details lost from originals but present in certain casts can most appropriately be preserved.
Anastasia holds a PhD in Public Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology in University College London (UCL). In her thesis she investigated the socio-political and economic role of archaeology in local communities through case studies in Greece.
She drafted the Management Plan for the Cultural Resources of the Area of Philippi for the nomination of the archaeological site of Philippi to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
She is currently conducting research in archaeological data management and sharing at the REWARD project and delivering seminars of the postgraduate course Issues in Conservation: The Context of Conservation at the Institute of Archaeology in UCL.
Research interests: Public Archaeology, Archaeological Resources Management, History of Archaeology, Archaeology and Nationalism, Archaeological Ethnography, Research Data Management in Archaeology
I am a Lecturer at the Centre for Sustainable Heritage and Course director for the MSc Sustainable Heritage. After the completion of my first degree in Archaeology and Art History at the National Kapoditrian University in Athens, Greece, I completed a MA in Cultural Heritage Studies and a PhD in Heritage Management at University College London, both funded by the Greek State Scholarship Foundation. My doctoral research entitled ‘Conflict Resolution in the Management of In-Situ Museums’ adopted an innovative interdisciplinary approach merging negotiation theories with the heritage management field in the case of in-situ museums, modern structures that enclose in situ conserved archaeological remains. The completion of the thesis was followed by research collaboration at University of York where I investigated, as part of the 1807 Commemorated project team (a project funded by AHRC), the ways in which visitors to exhibitions, commemorating the abolition of the slave trade in the UK, engaged or disengaged from the history of enslavement. During this project I developed an interest in the role of heritage in social inclusion as well as in models of community engagement in the heritage sector. This led me to work as the New Audience Advocate at the Audience Research and Advocacy Unit of the Science Museum. Other research projects that I have initiated include an anthropological study on the declining Greek island of Antikythera regarding local perceptions towards the archaeological site known as ‘The Castle’ and a nationwide survey in Greece exploring the barriers that prevent Greeks from visiting museums and archaeological sites. The projects were funded by the Greek State Scholarship Foundation and the Initiative for Heritage Conservancy respectively. I have also worked in several museums as archaeologist and curator including the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, the archaeological museum in Ancient Olympia and the Museum of London.
My research interests combine the fields of museology, cultural heritage, anthropology, reception studies, heritage management and public archaeology. My expertise lies in the areas of negotiation theories and conflict management in the heritage sector, value-led heritage management, community engagement and participatory planning models, audience development, and the application of qualitative and quantitative research methods to heritage studies.
I have published in a diverse range of journals and edited books and I have co-authored the book Representing Enslavement and Abolition: Ambiguous Engagements published by Routledge.
Alan J. Hogg, Jr. founded the Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies when he was a student at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology in 1995/96. Since then, his scientific experience has expanded from archaeological conservation to include neuroscience and atmospheric chemistry. His current position at the Sweetland Center for Writing at the University of Michigan allows him to focus on teaching ‘New Media Writing’ (with a focus on presenting scientific research), and ‘Writing in the Sciences’ to undergraduate and graduate science students. He also advises individual students and faculty about their writing, and is a freelance science writer and editor. Alan has a PhD from University of Michigan, Atmospheric and Space Science, a Certificate in Archaeological Conservation from UCL and a BA in English from the University of Michigan.
Emily Kaplan is an objects conservator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). She works on exhibit preparation at the museum’s New York and Washington DC facilities and specializes in technical studies and preventive conservation. Emily holds a Master’s in Art Conservation from Queen’s University and has done internships at several museums in the United States and worked at archaeological sites in Pakistan, El Salvador, Peru, and Turkey. Emily began working at the NMAI in 1994, stationed at the museum’s storage facility in New York. Since 1999, she has been working at the museum’s Cultural Resources Center in Maryland, when she was detailed to the Collections Management Department as Assistant Move Coordinator for Conservation during the five-year project to move the collection from New York to Maryland.
Bethania Reis Velloso is the director of the Centro de Conservação e Restauração de Bens Culturais Móveis (CECOR) at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Tracey Sweek is a senior conservator in the department of Conservation and Scientific Research at the British Museum. She has been a conservator since 1986 specialising in stone and stone-related materials, wall paintings and mosaic. Tracey joined the museum in 2004 for a second time after a period of work in private practice working with commercial companies in London and Scotland. Since being at the museum Tracey has established links with curators and has worked on excavations in Egypt and Sudan. Here she has formulated conservation programmes that are sustainable in these environments using the resources available. She has published in various journals and presented her work at conferences. Tracey has recently acquired the role of Project Coordinator for the World Conservation and Exhibition Centre currently being built at the British Museum.
