Emergency Planning

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.   

Samantha is the Director of Collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she oversees the permanent collection. Previously, she was the Preservation Specialist at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts, where she worked primarily with institutions and their collections to conduct on-site preservation needs and risk assessments, and assisting with preservation and emergency planning. She was also the project lead of the Pennsylvania Cultural Resilience Network (PaCRN) for five years, aiming to improve emergency response and preparedness for cultural institutions across the state, as well as locally leading the Philadelphia Alliance for Response network. Forsko received her MA in Arts Management with a focus on Archival and museum Studies from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, writing her master’s thesis on Emergency Preparedness in Cultural Institutions.

With nearly 15 years of experience, Rebecca has worked with a variety of collections in storage and on exhibition in diverse media. Her career began as a registrar for an historical society in Florida. After graduating with her MA in Museum Studies from The George Washington University, Kennedy worked in preservation and collections management at the Smithsonian Institution for 11 years. Her projects consisted of rehousing, exhibition installation, offsite storage management, object cataloging, deaccessioning and much more. 

In 2016, Kennedy completed a training in First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis (FAC) by the International Centre for the Study of Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM). This FAC course expanded her impact in helping institutions prepare for and respond to emergencies and disasters. She also served on the inaugural team of the Smithsonian’s Preparedness and Response in Collections Emergency (PRICE) for two years and the steering committee for the DC Alliance for Response. She is a Professional Associate (PA) of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC).

Jeremy Linden has been the Principal of Linden Preservation Services, Inc., since 2017. He is an active educator and consultant, and works closely with colleagues in libraries, archives, and museums on issues of material preservation, mechanical system performance, energy-savings, and sustainability. From 2010 to 2015, while at the Image Permanence Institute, he served as the co-instructor for more than 30 workshops and webinars on sustainable preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, specifically teaching sessions on the role of dew point and moisture control in preservation environments and environmental analysis, using environmental data for analyzing preservation, building, and system performance, and mechanical operation and energy optimization for cultural heritage settings. In 2017 he was an instructor for the “Preserving Collections in the Age of Sustainability” course as part of the Getty Conservation Institute’s MCE Initiative, teaching specifically on mechanical and environmental management strategies, operations, and commissioning. Over the course of the last several years he has taught workshops and webinars for the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the Society of American Archivists (SAA), the American Institute for Conservation, the American Alliance of Museums, the Northeast Document Conservation Center, Lyrasis, and others on topics ranging from data analysis for preservation and mechanical operation, moisture management and control in mechanized and non-mechanized environments and disaster response situations, sustainable operation of preservation environments, and environmental design and construction practices for cultural heritage. Linden has served as a co-author on recent standards and guidelines from the ISO, ASHRAE, and SAA, and most recently has served as a member of the first Sustainability Task Force for the American Association of State and Local History. Jeremy earned an MLS in Information Studies and an MA in History from the University of Maryland, and a BA in History from Vassar College.

Dr. Naturale is a traumatic stress specialist; a licensed clinical social worker with a 35-year history as a health/mental health care administrator and clinician specializing in responses to traumatic events. After 9/11/01, Dr. Naturale led Project Liberty, NY response to the World Trade Center disaster and over the past 20 years Dr. Naturale has provided disaster and traumatic stress response training and consultation throughout the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Naturale served as the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Disaster Technical Assistance Center Project Director. She was also the project director of one of the World Trade Center Health Program’s outreach and education programs and she was the architect of the Boston Marathon bombing behavioral health response.

In 2004, she helped launch the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and in 2008, an international not for profit called Psychology Beyond Borders; in 2011, the Disaster Distress Helpline. She then worked with the Dept of Justice/Office for Victims of crime as a program and needs assessment consultant for the San Bernardino terror attack, the Las Vegas Harvest Festival, Pulse Nightclub, Parkland, Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh Tree of Life, Virginia Beach, El Paso and Highland Ranch shooting incidents and the TN Christmas Day bombing. She has trained Psychologists in the Ukraine Military Service, Humanitarian Aid workers for the European Union and recently helped launch the new European Centre of Expertise for Victims of Terrorism.

Currently, Dr. Naturale is the Assistant Vice President of National Programs for Vibrant Emotional Health, where she oversees the Veterans Crisis Line, the National Disaster Distress Helpline and the Crisis Emotional Care Team and the Lifeline Cares Team- a wellness program dedicated to supporting the call center staff who respond to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline calls.  She continues to provide training and support to humanitarian aid workers across the globe. Her dissertation focused on Secondary Traumatic Stress in disaster responders, a subject she continues to study.