Jocelyn Alcántara-García

Biography

Dr. Jocelyn Alcántara-García (she/her/ella​) joined the University of Delaware’s Department of Art Conservation in the fall of 2014 after working for about five years in interdisciplinary projects – predominantly in Mexico, where she was born. Since 2023, she also has a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Her projects remain cross- and interdisciplinary, collaborating with conservators, historians, chemometricians, other scientists, artists, etc.

Jocelyn studied Conservation for two years at the National School of Conservation, Restoration and Museography (ENCRyM) and received a B. S. and a Ph. D. in (Inorganic) Chemistry from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Prior to joining UD, she was at the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic (VUT, internship in polymers), the National Museum of Contemporary Art Reina Sofia (MNCARS conservation science fellow, Spanish Ministry of Culture), and completed postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) as an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow.  Jocelyn is both a Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Xi member.

​​​Her research interests revolve around material culture and are divided into three broad categories, mostly involving textiles and/or archival materials: (1) forensic analysis; (2) reverse engineering and degradation mechanisms; and (3) innovative approaches to nondestructively study cultural heritage. In addition, she is active in creating new pedagogies to attract and retain people to STEM fields. You can find her at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library with WUDPAC students and doing research; in Old College with ARTC undergrads; and in Lamont DuPont/Brown/Drake with students from Chemistry and Biochemistry.