Conservation at Yale

Yale’s conservation community consists of dozens of highly skilled professionals working across the university’s collecting units.

Caring for a collection of over 30 million objects across five collecting units requires teams of experts with advanced training in art, library and archives, and natural history conservation. They specialize in understanding how complex materials such as paint, paper, photographs, wood, canvas, metals, plastics, textiles, taxidermy, fossils, and more are created and used, and how they change over time.  

Yale’s conservators form a campus-wide community of practice focused on collaboration, innovation, and mentoring future generations of heritage professionals. They regularly lend their expertise as teachers and researchers to further the university’s academic mission and support worldwide scholarship.  

The Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage is proud to be the home of Conservation at Yale: the university’s platform for cross-collection initiatives that address shared strategic conservation priorities. 

Meet the Steering Committee

The Conservation at Yale agenda is led by a Steering Committee comprised of the conservation department heads of the Yale University Art Gallery, Yale Center for British Art, Yale Peabody Museum, Yale University Library.  

Together they ensure that this expert community grows its collective impact on campus and across the multiple interdisciplinary fields that define cultural heritage preservation research and practice.

  • Mark Aronson

    Deputy Director and Chief Conservator
    Yale Center for British Art
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  • Brenna Campbell

    Associate Director, Conservation & Exhibition Strategies
    Yale University Library
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  • Mariana Di Giacomo

    Natural History Conservator
    Yale Peabody Museum
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  • Convener

    Alison Gilchrest

    Director
    Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage
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  • Steering Committee Chair

    Christine McCarthy

    Associate Director
    Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage
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  • Irma Passeri

    Susan Morse Hilles Chief Conservator
    Yale University Art Gallery
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Conservation Facilites

Yale’s collecting units maintain specialized spaces for conservation activities across campus, often embedded in museum buildings or closely adjacent to the collections, like Yale Library’s Gates (Stephen F. ’68) Conservation Laboratory at 344 Winchester Avenue. 

The Shared Conservation Lab on Yale’s West Campus is Yale’s largest conservation facility and serves as the primary space for the Yale University Art Gallery. 

The shared conservation lab exemplifies the university’s cross-collection approach to shared collections resources.

Cross-Collection Initiatives

These initiatives are led by colleagues from across the five cultural heritage units at Yale. Each project spans disciplines and engages shared goals that better the planet, educational opportunities, and collaboration at Yale.

Environmental Monitoring Project

Sustainably storing collections

Yale’s collections are responsibly aligning with Yale’s commitment to planetary solutions to combat climate change. A range of environmental data is being collected and examined to reduce the energy consumption of collection spaces.

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Guiding Future Generations

Building community and professional pathways

This cross-collection initiative aims to build a network and sense of community among emerging professionals working in conservation and preservation spaces across Yale. These professional development opportunities aim to build skills and relationships that last beyond time spent at Yale.

Three women discuss a work of art as it lies flat on a wooden table.

Shared Conservation Lab

Looking beyond artistic mediums

We are home to one of the most unique conservation laboratories where conservators from across Yale’s art and natural history collections work side by side. It is a leading-edge facility for conservation treatment and analysis of Yale collections.

An empty laboratory with art and conservation tools.
An empty laboratory with art and conservation tools.