TOM BRANCHICK
Director Emeritus
space
After earning a BFA in printmaking from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI (1973), Mr. Branchick received his MA and Certificate of Advanced Study from the State University College of Oneonta, Cooperstown Graduate Program. He completed an internship at the Williamstown Center where he subsequently joined the staff in 1981. Before coming to Williamstown, he was employed as a museum exhibit specialist for the New York State Museum. Appointed Director of the Center in 1997, Mr. Branchick continues to head the paintings department.
TERRY HASKINS
Director of Finance
placeholder
Terry has been with the Center since 1993. She earned an Associates Degree in Business Administration from Berkshire Community College and a certificate in Accounting from the former North Adams State College. As a lifelong resident of the area with strong family ties to the Berkshires, Ms. Haskins is a volunteer with various other non-profit organizations in the community.
ROB CONZETT
Director of Operations
KAREN PARRINO
Office Assistant
PAUL NICHOLS
Conservation Technician
MATT HAMILTON
Imaging
HELENE GILETTE-WOODARD
Head of Objects Department
Head of Wooden Objects + Furniture
spacespace
Helene is a Senior Conservator of Objects with over 25 years of experience. Since graduating with her Masters of Art degree in Art Conservation from the State University College, Buffalo/Cooperstown, N.Y., she has worked at a variety of museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Museum of American History and the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). While at the IMA, she has participated in two museum expansions, designing an object conservation laboratory, and the conservation and installation of a number of large exhibitions and gallery renovations. She was the owner of Heartland Art Conservation LLC, a private practice in central Indiana, working with small museums and private collectors. She has done extensive conservation work on a wide range of cultural and chronological works of art; American and European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, African, South Pacific and Native American artifacts, Asian art, Archaeological artifacts, Contemporary art and sculpture, and outdoor sculpture.
CHRISTINE PUZA
Head of Scientific Analysis
Head of Wooden Objects + Furniture
space
Ms. Puza graduated from the Buffalo State University Program in Art Conservation in 2012 with a concentration in Objects after completing her third-year internship at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. In addition, she has interned at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Diyarbakir Museum, and in the private practices of Marianne Webb and Simon Moore. She holds a B.Sci. in biological science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and spent five years working in basic science research at the Physiology Department at the Medical College of Wisconsin before coming to conservation. Christine maintains a strong interest in Asian and European lacquers and has participated in the Recent Advances in the Identification of Asian Lacquers workshop held at the Getty, as well as the 2012 Workshop for the Conservation and Restoration of urushi lacquer-ware sponsored by the Japanese National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.
SALLY KIM
Fellow in Objects Conservation
space
Sally Gunhee Kim is a recent graduate of Master’s program in Art Conservation at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Physical / Inorganic Chemistry and Visual Arts with Honors at Brown University, Providence, RI. She has previously interned at Rhode Island School of Design Museum (2015), McCord Museum (2018) and Museum of Anthropology at UBC (2019). Her long-term goal is to research materials with the potential to be new substitutes for use in the field of conservation.
MAGGIE BARKOVIC
Head of Paintings Department
space
Maggie has a BA in Chemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute (2008) and an MA in Art History (2012) from George Mason University. She completed her training and graduate degree in the Conservation of Easel Paintings at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London (2016). With an interest in modern + contemporary paintings, she has presented research on treating water-stained acrylic paintings for the American Institute for Conservation and International Academic Programs. She has held internships in both paintings conservation and conservation science at the Barnes Foundation, Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, the Phillips Collection, Technische Universiteit Delft, and Atelier Marjan de Visser in the Netherlands. She is the Editor and Art Director for WACC’s publication, Art Conservator. She is a member of the American Institute for Conservation
MONTSERRAT LE MENSE
Senior Paintings Conservator
for Intern Training
space
Montserrat received a BA in Fine Art from Saint Norbert College (1984) and an MA in Art History from the University of Wisconsin in 1988. Following receipt of her Master’s in painting conservation from the University of Delaware/ Winterthur Museum Art Conservation Program (1994), she completed internships at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Decorative Arts and Sculpture. Ms. Le Mense joined the Williamstown Center in 1995 as Mellon Advanced Intern. She is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation.
MARY HOLLAND
Assoc. Paintings Conservator
space
Mary earned a B.A. in Art History from Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand (2012). After returning to the U.S. she began working in the Registrar’s office at The Clark Art Institute during the final years of its major expansion project. In 2015 Mary transferred up to WACC as a pre-program intern in the paintings department, transitioning to an apprenticeship in 2016. She is a member of the American Institute for Conservation.
REBECCA JOHNSTON
Head of Paper Department
space
Rebecca received a BA in the Technology of Artistic and Historic Objects from the University of Delaware in 1987. She completed a preprogram apprenticeship in paintings conservation at Williamstown and received an MA and Certificate of Advanced Study from the State University College at Buffalo in 1991, where she majored in paper conservation. She completed internships in paper conservation at the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Victoria B.C., The Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard University Art Museums, and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
BROOK PRESTOWITZ
Assoc. Paper Conservator
space
Brook Prestowitz joined the Williamstown Art Conservation Center in 2017 as the Assistant Conservator of Paper. Prestowitz earned a Bachelor of the Arts in Art Conservation at the University of Delaware in 2009. She received a Masters of the Arts in Conservation of Fine Arts, Works of Art on Paper from Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, in 2015. During this time she held a work placement at the British Museum’s Hirayama Studio for Conservation of Asian Pictorial Art. Prior to joining WACC, Prestowitz was the Samuel H. Kress and the National Endowment for the Arts paper conservation fellow at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia, PA, from 2015-2017. She is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation.
SIMEON YOUNGMANN
Paper Conservation Technician
space
Simeon Youngmann is a conservation technician in the paper lab. He received his BFA in painting and drawing from SUNY New Paltz (2013) and his MFA in painting and drawing from SUNY Albany (2016). Simeon additionally teaches as adjunct faculty at SUNY Albany and Siena college, and maintains an active studio art practice.
LILA REID
Pre-Program Intern
Williamstown
space
Lila graduated from Hamilton College in the spring of 2020 with an art history concentration and art minor. She has previously completed a pre-program summer internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2018 and took a course in furniture and wooden objects restoration in the spring of 2019. She also assisted artist Elias Sime in building a site-specific sculpture for the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art in the summer of 2019. Lila plans to obtain a masters in art conservation.
SNOW FAIN
Assoc. Paper Conservator
Atlanta
space
Snow graduated from Kansas State University with a B.F.A degree with a major in painting and a minor in chemistry in 2007. Before graduate school, she was a pre-program conservation intern at the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City from 2008 – 2009. Snow has a M. A. degree in conservation of fine art with a concentration in easel paintings from Northumbria University in 2013. She also received a M.A. degree in conservation of books and library material in 2015 from West Dean College with the University of Sussex. During her graduate studies, Snow interned for Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services in Kansas City and the Newberry Library in Chicago. After graduating, she worked as an assistant paintings conservator for Page Conservation for an on-site project to conserve the murals in the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul from the fall of 2015 to 2016. She was a Cathleen A. Baker Fellow in Book Conservation at the University of Michigan during the summer of 2017. Snow worked as Lead Conservator for the Local Records Preservation Program for the Missouri State Archives from the fall of 2017-2019 before joining the team at AACC.
JAMIE CASSAVOY
Operations Manager
Atlanta
space
Jamie graduated from Boston College with a BA in Communications (1991). She completed a Masters in Fine Arts from Rochester Institute of Technology, School for American Craft (1996). Jamie worked as a modelmaker in the jewelry industry before opening her business, Cassavoy & Co. in 2000. She made handmade, limited production jewelry until 2017 when she closed her doors. She still loves working with metal and in general loves making things.
KRISTEN GILLETTE
Assoc. Objects Conservator
Atlanta
space
Kristen graduated in 2010 from Wheaton College (IL) with a B. A. in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology. Prior to graduate school, she was an intern in the conservation lab at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Kristen attended University College London where she received an MA in Principles of Conservation (2014) and an MSc in Conservation for Archaeology & Museums (2016). Her final year of graduate work included a placement at the Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford. In addition to diverse object treatments, she pursued dissertation research regarding the functionality of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) in regards to three-dimensional objects in museum collections. This work brought Kristen to the Okinawa Institute of Science & Technology in 2017-18 where she established a methodology for RTI to be utilized with local Okinawan cultural heritage institutions, and developed skills in the treatment of lacquer objects. Other experience includes archaeological field conservation in Turkey, and outdoor sculpture and studio conservation with KCI Conservation of Minneapolis, MN.
KATYA BIRUKOVA
Assoc. Paintings Conservator
Atlanta
space
Katya studied the preservation of cultural heritage at the Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy (2007-2015) and received a master’s degree in painting conservation. During her studies Katya also completed coursework in gilded objects conservation. Katya’s final graduation work was published in the anniversary edition publication, “Academy of Stieglitz, the Best Graduation Projects for 140 Years” (2015). Katya has held internships at the State Hermitage Museum and at the Arefinskaya Troitskaya Church. Katya has museum and private sector experience in painting conservation. She has been a Project Conservator on several major projects including the treatment of mural and ceiling paintings at the Yusupov Palace and the treatment of gilded ceiling friezes at the Sheremetevsky Palace, Museum of Music, both in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In addition, Katya served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art Conservation at The Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy.