Our Alumni

Alumni Stories
  • University of Delaware logo with campus building in the background

    Portland Art Museum’s Prized Monet Resurfaces After a Dazzling Restoration

    February 25, 2025 | Written by Min Chen of artnet
    The canvas has undergone a major conservation to de-varnish its surface.
  • Uncovering Black histories at UD

    February 03, 2025 | Written by Amy Wolf
    A virtual tour ties previously overlooked histories to sites on campus. The Black Histories at UD StoryMap traces stories of Black community members, students, faculty members and racial justice activists to specific sites on the UD campus and the greater Newark area.
  • WUDPAC Alumni Venture Award Recipients

    December 23, 2024 | Written by CAS Communication Staff
    The Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation is pleased to announce the 2024 recipients of the Alumni Professional Venture Fund awards.
  • UD continues to produce influential leaders

    December 09, 2024 | Written by Jamie Washington
    TIME ranks UD among nation’s ‘Best Colleges for Future Leaders’
  • Making space with the Alumni Professional Venture Fund

    August 28, 2024 | Written by CAS Staff
    WUDPAC Class of 2021 alumna Sarah Towers used her funding to run a pilot program bringing woodworking and art conservation training to historically marginalized students.
Class of 2024 group photo
Congratulations to the WUDPAC Class of 2024! Our new alumni and their postgraduate placements: Adriana Benavides (Assistant Paintings Conservator at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT), Daniella Briceño Villamil (Conservation Fellow, Glenstone Museum, Potomac, MD), Mackenzie Fairchild (Assistant Conservator, The Field Museum, Chicago, IL), Tammy Hong (洪莹) (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Conservation of Works of Art on Paper, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA), Johanna Pinney (IMLS Museums for America Project Preventive Conservator at Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT, and owner of Pinney Art Conservation, South Burlington, VT), Miriam-Helene Rudd(Conservation Fellow in Objects Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY), Caroline Shaver (Nigel Seeley Fellow in Decorative Arts Conservation, Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Studio, Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent, and private practice, Cincinnati, OH), Ashley Stanford (Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Photography Conservation at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY), Katarina Stiller (Conservation Resident, Northwestern University Libraries, Evanston, IL), and Brianna Weakley (currently interviewing). Image: Evan Krape/UD

Alumni of the Art Conservation Program


The Art Conservation program at the University of Delaware has produced over 300 graduates since its inception in 1974. These alumni have made significant contributions to the field, pioneering innovative examination and treatment techniques, developing national standards for cultural heritage preservation, and conserving iconic artworks and artifacts.

Alumni from our graduate programs

For over thirty years, our graduates have been instrumental in the preservation of the United States’ cultural heritage.

We have analyzed and conserved:

  • Thomas Jefferson’s Bible,
  • Declaration of Independence,
  • The Constitution, 
  • Emancipation Proclamation,
  • Star-Spangled Banner, 
  • Treaty of Paris, 
  • Dead Sea Scrolls, 
  • and works by artists ranging from Rembrandt to Van Gogh to Wyeth—from the Old Masters to contemporary craftspeople to innovators in time-base media. 

We have worked with underserved communities to preserve their family treasures and have preserved the world’s first photograph, WWII photographs collected by W.E.B. DuBois, Babe Ruth’s baseball contract, the original R2D2 from the movie Star Wars, Elvis Presley’s 81 gold records, the 1905 Wright Flyer III, the original sealskin mittens Matthew Henson wore during the discovery of the North Pole, George Washington’s dentures, Franklin Roosevelt’s braces, original manuscripts by James Joyce and Henry David Thoreau, and early animation cells from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

We have helped to preserve the photographic heritage from Cuba to the Arab World. We have led in the preservation of the architectural interiors of Mount Vernon, Colonial Williamsburg, the Capitol, and the White House. We have also worked at archeological sites from Delaware to Turkey, Mayan murals in the jungles of Guatemala, and Navaho sites in Arizona, as well as studying and preserving the decorative interiors of the Forbidden City.

Alumni have assisted FEMA with emergency response efforts following presidentially declared disasters such as hurricanes and floods, and graduates also have been called upon to assist in international preservation efforts in Kobe, Japan, and most recently, in Baghdad.