TOM BRANCHICK
Director
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Head of Paintings Department
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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
Assistant to Director
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Accounts Manager
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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
Office Manager
JUSTIN TRAPP
Office Assistant
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Technician
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Justin Trapp received his BFA in photography, ceramics with a minor in art history, from Herron School of Art & Design in 2009. After graduation Justin continued his studio practice, showing in solo and group exhibitions. Before relocating to Massachusetts Justin was involved in social civic engagement for Indianapolis’s independent arts & music community. Justin was also a teacher at the Indianapolis Art Center where he taught adult wheel throwing courses and ceramic workshops. Justin continues his studio art practice and teaching in the Berkshire area.
PAUL NICHOLS
Conservation Technician
MATT HAMILTON
Imaging
HELENE GILETTE-WOODARD
Head of Objects Department
Head of Wooden Objects + Furniture
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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
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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.
NORA FRANKEL
Assoc. Conservator of Textiles + Objects
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Nora received an MPhil in Textile Conservation from the University of Glasgow (2016) and an MA in Principles of Conservation from University College London (2014). Prior to joining Williamstown Art Conservation Center in 2018, she received an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Textile Conservation at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, where she researched the use and identification of Woodlands plant fibers. Additional internships include the Rijksmuseum, Burrell Collection, Smith College Museum of Art, Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, Death Valley Historical Society, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and the Southwest Museum of the American Indian. She currently serves as a member of the American Institute for Conservation Equity and Inclusion Committee.
MONTSERRAT LE MENSE
Senior Paintings Conservator
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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.
MAGGIE BARKOVIC
Assoc. Paintings Conservator
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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 joined the WACC family in January of 2017. She is a member of the American Institute for Conservation
MARY HOLLAND
Asst. Paintings Conservator
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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
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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
Asst. Paper Conservator
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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
LINDSEY TUCKER
Office Manager
Atlanta
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Lindsey graduated summa cum laude with a B.F.A. in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking from Georgia State University in 2017. While in school, Lindsey was awarded the DPP Award for Excellence Scholarship awarded by the Drawing, Painting, Printmaking staff. She interned with Burnaway ATL and Mint ATL, two local Atlanta arts organizations. Along with her full time position at the Atlanta Art Conservation Center, Lindsey continues to stay active in the arts community and grow her personal art business.
SAMANTHA SKELTON
Assoc. Paintings Conservator
Atlanta
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Samantha graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in art history and minors in chemistry and studio art from the South Carolina Honors College, University of South Carolina, in 2011. Her graduate internships included working on Damascene interiors at the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s Shangri La mansion (Honolulu, HI), a ceiling mural at the San Francisco Maritime Museum, and paintings at the Statens Museum for Kunst (Copenhagen, Denmark). While earning her M.S. in art conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, Samantha worked from 2013 to 2015 as a graduate conservation fellow and Kress Foundation conservation fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. There she worked on paintings ranging from Rococo and Baroque to modern works and developed an innovative treatment system for Color Field paintings, which she presented at the 2016 Congress of the International Institute for Conservation in Los Angeles.
MEGAN SHORES
Assoc. Paintings Conservator
Atlanta
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Megan graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Art History and a minor in Design Studies from Arizona State University in 2007. She earned a City and Guilds of London Level 3 Certificate with High Honors in Picture and Frame Conservation from the London School of Picture and Frame Restoration in 2010 followed by a first-class honors Masters Degree in Conservation of Fine Art with a concentration in Easel Paintings from Northumbria University in 2013. Her postgraduate internships included the conservation of panel paintings with Decowell Conservation in Northern Ireland, a wall painting conservation project at 1 Moray Place in Glasgow, Scotland, a summer internship at the Guildhall Art Gallery in London, and the study and treatment of a Spanish Colonial sarga painting at the Carmel Mission museum in Carmel, California. She completed a conservation apprenticeship with Art Conservation de Rigueur in San Francisco, CA from 2013-2014. Megan worked as an assistant paintings conservator with Page Conservation in Washington, D.C. from 2014-2016 and as an assistant paintings conservator for Weilhammer & Schoeller Art Conservation to re-locate and conserve the Atlanta Cyclorama painting from 2016-spring of 2018.
SNOW FAIN
Assoc. Paper Conservator
Atlanta
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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.
KRISTEN GILLETTE
Assoc. Objects Conservator
Atlanta
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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.