Dr. Bill Wei is a senior conservation scientist (retired) in the Cultural Heritage Laboratory of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE). Dr. W. (Bill) Wei (1955) is a retired senior conservation scientist in the Cultural Heritage Laboratory of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE). He continues to conduct research and consult on the effects of cleaning and treatments of objects on their appearance and viewers’ perception, including:

-  The effect of aging, corrosion, dust and cleaning on the condition, appearance and perception of objects of art and cultural heritage.

-  The effect of vibrations and mechanical stresses on the condition of fragile works of art and cultural heritage

A major area of interest is how conservation decisions are influenced by the differing perception of objects by art historians, conservation scientists, conservators, curators, directors, and other collections staff. Dr. Wei has trained as a Socratic dialogue moderator and has moderated many dialogues over the past fifteen years, including dialogues at eight previous AIC annual meetings (2013-2019, 2021-2023) on “value”, “museum climate”, “certification”, “disaster planning”, "high-tech innovation", “public participation” “color”, “systematic racism in conservation”, and “authenticity and originality”, a dialogue on the rights of living artists at the ICOM-CC meeting in 2014 and at the ICOM-CC Legal Issues working group meeting in 2016, and dialogues for various museums, cultural heritage institutes, universities, and smaller groups of conservators in different countries on conservation ethics, cleaning of historic church interiors, digitalization, photograph conservation, the value of archaeological work, and the subject of dust in museums.

Dr. Lisa Giombini is currently Research Fellow in Aesthetics at the University of Roma Tre, Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts, and Visiting Research Fellow in Philosophy within the framework of the ‘Heritage Hub’ of the School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire, UK. She held postdoctoral positions at Stuttgart National Academy of Fine Arts, Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), and at the University of Presov (Slovak Republic). Besides a long-term interest in the philosophy of music, Lisa works in the field of the philosophy of art conservation, the ethics of cultural heritage, and environmental and everyday aesthetics.

Website: https://uniromatre.academia.ed...

Wendy Claire Jessup is a conservator with a specialization in Preventive Conservation. She established Wendy Jessup and Associates, Inc. in 1987 after having worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Smithsonian Institution. Past projects have included the development of preventive conservation policies, collections management programs, environmental monitoring and improvement programs, collections relocations, collections storage improvements, and long-range conservation plans for a variety of museums, historical societies and other stewards of cultural property. Much of her work is with museums engaged in new construction or renovation projects. Many of her clients are housed in historic structures and have mixed collections, and require careful consideration of all aspects of the organization's operation in order to develop recommendations that are sensitive to the special requirements of both collection and historic structure.

Michael Henry is Principal Engineer/Architect and founding partner of Watson & Henry Associates where he has practiced for the past forty years, consulting to institutions, cultural heritage stewards and architects/engineers throughout the United States and in India, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil and Tunisia. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania and guest lecturer in the WUDPAC program. Michael Henry's work includes: sustainable environmental management and monitoring for museum collections and archives; investigation, monitoring, analysis and assessment of historic buildings; preservation of significant historic structures, especially unconventional or technically challenging buildings; and engineered stabilization of large museum objects.

Héctor J. Berdecía-Hernández is a heritage conservator and currently serves as the founding Director-General of the Centro de Conservación y Restauración de Puerto Rico (CENCOR), where he is responsible for the institutional development of the Center, strategic planning, as well as the execution of special preservation and conservation projects, services, research, and initiatives. He also serves as an advisor to cultural institutions on technical matters related to the conservation of cultural heritage and is an Adjunct Professor in preservation technology and materials conservation at the Graduate Program in Architectural Conservation and Rehabilitation at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico.  

Before being appointed as the first Director-General of the CENCOR, Héctor worked on several heritage conservation and research projects in both the public and private sectors in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Puerto Rico. He is currently an active member of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC), where he serves as Program Chair of the Architecture Speciality Group (ASG) and is a member of the Code of Ethics Task Force. He is also a member of the International Institute for Conservation (IIC) and the Association for Preservation Technology International (APT). 

Héctor holds an M.S. in Historic Preservation with a concentration in Architectural Materials Conservation from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.EnvD. in Environmental Design-Architecture with a double major in History of the Americas from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. He also studied Conservation Science courses within Georgetown University and the Universitá degli Studi de Firenze. 

Justine is the Program Manager for Preservation of Indigenous Collections at UCLA/Getty Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage. Justine has worked in museums and cultural heritage for more than a decade, specializing in collections care and green museum practices. She holds a BA in Art History from San Francisco State University and earned a dual Master's degree in Museum Studies and Business Administration from John F. Kennedy University. Justine is a contract Researcher at the Getty Conservation Institute and is the current Co-chair of the American Institute for Conservation Sustainability Committee.

Brianna Toth currently works for the Smithsonian Libraries & Archives Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative (AVMPI) as their Video Preservation Specialist and serves as the Co-Chair of the Magnetic Media Crisis Committee (MMCC). Her research is concerned with the obsolescence of technical expertise in relation to the maintenance and preservation of analog video decks. In tandem with this research, she worked as AMIA’s Program Manager for Online Education and served as the Co-Chair of the Continuing Education Advisory (CEA) Task Force from 2021 – 2023. Brianna holds a Masters in Library Information Science with a focus on Media Archival Studies (MLIS MAS) from UCLA.

Libby Savage Hopfauf is Co-Chair of the Magnetic Media Crisis Committee (MMCC), Executive Director of Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound (MIPoPS), and the Audiovisual Archivist at the Seattle Municipal Archives. She received a Master's in Library and Information Science and a certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing with a minor in Sociology from Western Washington University. Libby is dedicated to creating accessible resources for archivists, promoting intuitive use of open-source tools to support sustainable digitization practices and address the ongoing magnetic media crisis.

Kristin MacDonough works as the Archive and Collection Manager at Video Data Bank (VDB), an archive and distributor of single-channel videos by and about artists. Prior to her current role at VDB, Kristin worked as the Assistant Media Conservator at the Art Institute of Chicago. Outside of work, Kristin empowers others to engage with at-risk and under-supported audiovisual collections through mentorship and by organizing workshops and courses on caring for AV media. Kristin holds an MA from the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at New York University. She previously worked at VDB as the Digitization Specialist, and has also worked for other organizations including The StandBy Program and Bay Area Video Coalition. 

Joanna spent five years exploring the different specialties of conservation before specializing in paper conservation with a minor in photograph conservation in graduate school. She received an MS in Art Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC) and a BA in Art History from Boston University. She has since interned at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Weissman Preservation Center, and the American Philosophical Society. Joanna is currently working as an Associate Paper Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts and as an Adjunct Instructor for WUDPAC.

As CCAHA's Education Program Manager, Greg Stuart (he/they) is responsible for connecting CCAHA's virtual and in-person audiences to engaging educational programs, tours, and written resources, bringing preservation awareness to cultural heritage professionals in the Mid-Atlantic region, nationwide, and internationally. Greg develops and plans preventive conservation training and teaches workshops on the care and handling of paper artifacts.

Prior to working at the CCAHA, Greg was the Coordinator of Adult Public Programs and Museum Educator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They have also worked in education and public programs roles at the Samek Art Museum, a program of Bucknell University, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Portland Art Museum. Greg has taught art history and museum studies courses at Portland State University, Concordia University, Portland, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He holds an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA in Art History and English from Loyola University, Chicago.  

Professionally, Nylah is the Assistant Conservator of Objects & Program Assistant at Balboa Art Conservation Center. She received her M.S. in Art Conservation from the Winterthur/ University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation in 2022 and her B.A. with Honors in Archaeology from Stanford University in 2018. She is currently a Core Group member of the AIC Ethics Core Documents Revision Task Force and a founding member of the Black Art Conservators group. Her research interests include equity and inclusion in conservation, preserving ephemera, and fabrication of inorganic objects. Nylah is particularly passionate about public engagement and community connections within art conservation and cultural heritage institutions in the United States.

Leticia Gomez Franco (she/her/ella) is the Executive Director of the Balboa Art Conservation Center. Her work is rooted in the intersection of culture, representation and social justice, all values that play a role in her position at BACC where she is collaboratively leading the 50 year old organization, through a transformative shift into a radically inclusive art conservation nonprofit. She previously served as Senior Arts and Culture Funding Manager for the City of San Diego where she led the City’s arts and culture funding program, oversaw the development and implementation of professional development, technical assistance and capacity building for arts organizations. Before that, she was co-founder and Director of Casa Familiar’s The Front Arte & Cultura, where she oversaw development and program management for multiple border art spaces as well as headed a rigorous and culturally conscious exhibition calendar with a commitment to local arts, representation, and community empowerment.  Leticia is a first-generation college graduate born in the U.S. to immigrant parents from Tepatitlan Jalisco, Mexico and raised in Pico Union/South Central L.A. She holds a B.A. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in English and Chicana/o Studies and a M.A. in Curatorial Theory from San Diego State University’s Liberal Arts & Sciences Program. She is also a two-time fellow of the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture (NALAC). Leticia remains steadfast in her commitment to use her experience in arts administration and community activism to increase access to the arts for all.

Alisha Andrews-Simmons holds a Bachelor's degree in Social Work, a Masters Degree in Executive Leadership and is a Doctoral Candidate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Her expertise lies in organizational development with a focus on strategy, facilitation, training and evaluation. Her unique background serving in the United States Senate, working with state governments, higher education, and nonprofits has equipped her with a deep understanding of change management within organizations and community. 

Based in Aurora, Colorado, Alisha is committed to empowering individuals and organizations to foster inclusive environments where everyone can thrive. In her down time, Alisha enjoys riding bikes, reading, volunteering, and spending time with family.

Stéphanie Auffret is a furniture conservator with strong interest in 17th and 18th century decorative arts, including marquetry, decorative surfaces such as gilded wood and lacquer, as well as upholstery. She received both a PhD and an MA in Art History from the University of Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV and an MA in Art Conservation from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her PhD focused on The Authenticity of French Furniture: Interpretation, Evaluation and Preservation. She joined the Getty Conservation Institute in 2016, where she develops research projects, training programs internationally, as well as dissemination tools such as publications. Her currents projects focus on the conservation of wooden gilded surfaces and Asian and European lacquers, as well as furniture conservation. Prior to this position, she worked as a furniture conservator at the Winterthur Museum (as conservator and assistant professor in the Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation), the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Historic New England, as well as at private conservation studios in France. She held several officer positions within both WAG (AIC) and ICOM-CC over the past two decades.

RIAN M. H. DEURENBERG-WILKINSON is a Conservator at Fallon & Wilkinson, LLC, a private conservation firm in Connecticut. She held a two-year position in the Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation at the Metropolitan Museμm of Art in New York, after concluding a three-year Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the Philadelphia Museμm of Art. She graduated from the furniture conservation program at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN) in 2001 and has worked on wooden artifacts in private and institutional conservation labs in both the Netherlands and the United States. Over the past two decades, she has frequently worked on upholstery projects spanning the range of commercial reupholstery to completely non-intrusive upholstery.