C2C Care Course Investigating Contamination and Pesticides in Cultural Heritage Collections

Lisa Goldberg, Goldberg Preservation Services, LLC, is a conservator in private practice with a focus on preventive care as well as health and safety issues. She has been involved in a wide range of conservation consultations and treatment projects to help resolve issues related to exhibit, support and storage, transport and environment for individuals and institutions of many sizes. She is a member of SPNHC and AAM, and is a Fellow of AIC and IIC. As long time editor of the AIC News, she regularly works with authors and various committees to help bring publication projects to fruition. Lisa is one of the founding members of the FAIC website, Storage Techniques for Art, Science, and History Collections (www.STASHc.com) and continues to serve the project as Editor-in-Chief. 

Kerith Koss Schrager is an objects conservator and Head of Conservation at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Kerith specializes in occupational health and safety for cultural heritage workers and has degrees in both Environmental Health Sciences (2022) and Conservation (2008) from New York University.  Prior to her current position, she was the owner of The Found Object Art Conservation, LLC and has also held positions with the Brooklyn Museum, Field Museum, and National Museum of Asian Art of the Smithsonian. Kerith also serves as adjunct faculty at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She is a Professional Associate member of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) and a former Chair of both their Health & Safety Network and Conservators in Private Practice (CIPP) Specialty Group.

Nancy Odegaard served as Conservator, Head of Preservation Division at the Arizona State Museum and Professor of Anthropology, Materials Science & Engineering, Historic Preservation, and American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona from 1983 to 2021. She previously worked at the Smithsonian Institution, Peabody Museum – Harvard University, and with many museums throughout the country and internationally on special projects, conservation assessments, workshops. She has received resident scholar awards from the Fulbright Commission, Getty Conservation Institute, Winterthur Museum, ICCROM- Rome, Canadian Conservation Institute, and University of London as well as receiving an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden in 2016. Among her many publications are books including The Care and Handling of Anthropological Collections (WAAC 1991), Materials Characterization Tests for Objects of Art and Archaeology (Archetype 2000, 2005, Kress Award), Old Poisons – New Problems A Museum Resource (Altamira 2005), Curating Human Remains: A Guide for Museums and Academic Institutions (Altamira 2006, Kress Award), and A Visual Dictionary of Artistic and Domestic Arts (Rowman & Littlefield 2022- American Alliance of Museums Award). She is currently Conservator Professor Emerita at the University of Arizona and continues to research, write, and conduct collaborative projects with museums and communities.

Helene Tello has worked as a freelance senior conservator since 2020. Starting her career in 1980, she opened her own conservation studio in 1983. She then moved on to the Vonderau Museum in Fulda, Germany. Subsequently, she looked after the Indian collections at the Ethnologisches Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany, from 1998 to mid-2020. There, she encountered the topic of pesticides formerly used on objects. She conducts research on decontamination methods of such treated cultural assets as well as safe handling of them for everyone who must deal with them. Due to the opening of museum collections to indigenous people, who started collaborating with the museums as well as repatriating their cultural assets, her many years of expertise are extremely important in our time. Her knowledge is spread out through numerous journal contributions, teaching activities and lectures at home and abroad. From May through October 2024, she was in residence at the UCLA/Getty Conservation Program. There, she conducted research on the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) as part of her Fulbright scholarship. Her research takes place against the background of debates on neocolonialism that have risen in Germany and Europe and the demands of indigenous people to museums for collaboration and restitution of their cultural assets.

Melodi McAdams organizes the California Repatriation Community of Practice and the Tribally led Contamination & Repatriation Working group. She has her MA in anthropology with a focus in ethnography and 20 years of experience working for Tribal Governments and Museums on repatriation, Tribal Monitoring and cultural site protection.

David Hinkamp, MD, MPH (University of Michigan) is a Board-certified Occupational and Environmental Medicine specialist who has worked at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Cook County Hospital since the 1980’s

In 1988, Dr. Hinkamp helped found and direct health programs for Valerie Wellington’s Chicago Blues Coalition and later, Willie Dixon’s Blues Heaven Foundation. In 1999, he founded the Health in the Arts Program at UIC School of Public Health. This program applies the Occupational Health approach to the work-related hazards in an underserved sectors of the visual and performing arts, as well as museum and collections professionals. In 2010, along with other health and safety experts, he wrote and edited the book, Health and Safety for Museum and Collections Professionals.

Dr. Hinkamp continues to work with local, national and international organizations on these issues. In 2024 he was elected President of the international Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA) in London.

Mr. Ralph A. Froehlich, M.S., CIH, CSP, QEP, FAIHA, has more than thirty years of experience in the fields of environmental and occupational health and heads the industrial hygiene division of Helix Environmental, Inc.

Brandy Howard, PE, CIH, CSP, is the Group Manager of Industrial Hygiene and Asbestos at Terracon’s Denver office. Brandy holds a BS in Engineering and a MS in Environmental Science and Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. Brandy has been a consultant for over 15 years and works with clients in various industries to deliver cost-effective environmental, health, and safety solutions to support their operations. Brandy currently serves as the Vice Chair for the AIHA Museums and Cultural Heritage Industry Working Group and was a research partner on the Museum Poisons Test Kit project.

Marilen Pool is an objects conservator in private practice in Tucson, Arizona. She worked for the Arizona State Museum (ASM) Preservation Division for more than 20 years as Senior Project Conservator before retiring in 2024. She holds a PhD in Arid Lands Resource Sciences from the University of Arizona, an MA in Museum Studies, and is a graduate of the Sir Sanford Fleming Conservation Program in Canada. Before entering the field of conservation, Marilen worked as a Museum Curator and Director. Marilen is a former member of the AIC Health and Safety Committee. She has prepared pesticide use histories for ASM and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. She recently transposed her extensive research on pesticide chemicals used in museums for online use on Museumspests.net in a relational database. 

Kate Compton-Gore is the NAGPRA Training Coordinator for the National NAGPRA Program and part of the NAGPRA team at the Museum of Northern Arizona. She received here PhD from Northern Arizona University focusing on NAGPRA policy, Indigenous environmental justice, and the ongoing problem of pesticide contamination in collections. She has supported NAGPRA compliance for the past 20 years both in and out of museum settings. In her role with the National NAGPRA Program, she supports Indian Tribes, NHOs, museums, and Federal agencies through training and guidance on the revised regulations. Throughout her career, Ms. Compton-Gore actively focuses on community engagement and support. She currently volunteers as the co-facilitator of the NAGPRA Community of Practice, dedicated to decreasing misunderstanding and hesitancy and fostering relationships and healing across the field.

Whitney Petrey is the Tribal Historian and Repatriation Coordinator for the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake. She has worked as an archaeologist and curator for agencies, cultural resource management companies, museums, and universities. She graduated with a B.A. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Anthropology and with an M.A. from East Carolina University in Maritime Archaeology with an emphasis in object conservation.

Maeve Moriarty has been a member of the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) since 2017 and works on the analysis of heritage objects for pesticide residues. She has published numerous articles on arsenic analysis and obtaining data for risk assessments.