Rebecca Fifield is Senior Manager, Collection Management at The New York Public Library. She has over thirty years of experience working with both large and small library, art, and history collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She received an M.A. in Museum Studies from The George Washington University in 1999, where she received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to study collections care administration. A frequent speaker on emergency preparedness and collection care topics, she is the author of "Emergency Management" in Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage. A Professional Associate of AIC, Becky is former Chair of the American Institute for Conservation’s Collection Care Network and former Chair of the Alliance for Response NYC.   

Valerie Marlowe is the Assistant Director for Archives and Collections at the Disaster Research Center. Valerie is responsible for strategic oversight of DRC collections and archival holdings, including the E.L. Quarantelli Resource Collection, which currently holds over 125,000 items, including historic research data and other disaster-related documents and publications. Valerie's research and practical work primarily focuses on issues related to how disaster-related archives, collections, and other forms of cultural heritage are created and maintained, and what "big picture" organizational processes influence the assembling and stewardship of these important collections.

Tom Clareson is Project Director of the Performing Arts Readiness project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help performing arts organizations nationwide learn how to protect their assets, sustain operations, and be prepared for emergencies. He serves as Senior Consultant for Digital & Preservation Services at LYRASIS, consulting and teaching nationally and internationally on preservation, disaster preparedness, digitization, digital preservation, special collections/archives, remote storage, funding, strategic planning, and advocacy for libraries, archives, and museums. Clareson serves as Vice President on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation.

Rebecca Elder is an experienced cultural heritage preservation consultant who helps clients find practical and achievable solutions to care for their history collections. She collaborates with libraries, museums, archives, municipalities and families to tailor preservation plans to their resources and timelines.

In 2014, Rebecca founded Rebecca Elder Cultural Heritage Preservation to provide preservation advice to clients holding history collections. Rebecca has also worked at Amigos Library Services, the Harvard University Libraries and the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Rebecca received her MSIS and a Certificate of Advanced Studies for Conservation of Library and Archival Materials from the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, and now is adjunct faculty at the iSchool, teaching Preservation Management and Treatment Techniques for Bound Materials.  She also serves as coordinator for the National Heritage Responders, a team of volunteer conservators and allied professionals who respond to disasters. 

Rebecca is a Professional Associate member of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. She also engages in professional service with the American Institute for Conservation, the Society of American Archivists, the Society of Southwest Archivists, and the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums.