Who's Who

Chair of the Steering Group

 Sarah Staniforth read chemistry at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and then studied for the Diploma in Easel Paintings Conservation at the Courtauld Institute of Art.  From 1980-1985 she worked in the Scientific Department at the National Gallery, researching uses of colour measurement in paintings conservation, and various preventive conservation issues, including museum environmental monitoring and control and the packing and transport of paintings.  She joined the National Trust in 1985 as Adviser on Paintings Conservation and Environmental Control, and has continued her preventive conservation research.  Sarah co-developed and implemented conservation heating for historic houses, for which the National Trust was awarded the Museums and Galleries Commission Jerwood Conservation Award for Innovation in 1994.  She became Head Conservator in 2002 and Historic Properties Director in 2005, and she currently manages the sections who advise National Trust properties on archaeology, buildings, collections, gardens and parks.  Sarah has served on the Directory Board of the International Council of Museum - Conservation Committee, has been Vice-President of the International Institute for Conservation and Chair of the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation Accreditation Committee.  She is currently on the Council of the Museums Association and is an Accredited Conservator-Restorer (ACR).  Her current interests include sustainability and the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage.

Steering Group Members

 Peter Brimblecombe was born in Australia, but went to university in Auckland, New Zealand where he did a PhD on the aqueous chemistry of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere. Although Peter remains interested in atmospheric sulphur chemistry, he is currently concerned with the thermodynamics of the concentrated aqueous aerosol and in recent years this has been applied to organic materials with a special focus on humic-like substances and airborne surfactants. Peter is also interested in long-term changes in urban air pollution and its effects on health and building damage. The historical aspects of this work formed the subject of a book, The Big Smoke and have recently focussed on Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
Peter's interest in material damage by air pollutants has not been restricted to outdoor environments; he has also worked on the museum atmosphere and has a continuing interest in the process of damage to cultural materials by air pollutants and climate change. In recent years he has become interested in communicating information about the atmospheric sciences to broader audiences.  Peter is a Professor in Atmospheric Chemistry at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia and was appointed senior editor of Atmospheric Environment in 1990.

 Craig Kennedy received a degree in biochemistry from the University of Stirling and a PhD in structural biophysics from Cardiff University, examining the deterioration of collagen within historic parchments. This work married high-end scientific analysis (synchrotron radiation, neutron scattering, etc.) with the practical needs of conservators working on ancient documents. Further work at Cardiff included examination of the structure of cellulose microfibrils from higher plants such as celery, sugar beet, tunicin and flax, as well as analysis of historical materials such as silk, paper, leather and glass. The effects of cleaning and repairs on historical materials was a major feature of this work. Dr Kennedy joined Historic Scotland in 2006 and became Head of Science in early 2007. As well as managing the science unit, Craig has supervised research internships, and is co-supervising a number of studentships with Universities in to areas relating to historic building deterioration.

 Katy Lithgow joined the National Trust in 1991, having taken a BA Hons in Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Art in Cambridge, and obtained the Postgraduate Diploma in Wall Paintings Conservation from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where she taught, following an internship at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. As an Area Conservator and then Assistant to the Housekeeper she specialized in preventive conservation and the storage and protection of collections during building works. In 1995 she became the Trust’s Wall Painting Conservation Adviser and in 2002 Conservation Advisers Manager, co-ordinating the advice provided by the Trust's staff and freelance conservation advisers, before being appointed Head Conservator in 2005. She is an Accredited Conservator-Restorer (ACR) in both preventive and wall paintings conservation. Although not a scientist by training she is interested in the application of science to conservation and stakeholder involvement in the development of scientific research, and provided evidence for the House of Lords enquiry into Science and Heritage.

 Nick Merriman became Director of the Manchester Museum in March 2006. Prior to that he was Director of Museums & Collections, and Reader in Museum Studies, at University College London, for 8 years. During this time, he developed new courses in museum and heritage studies, and created a new university-wide museum service. At the time of leaving to take up his current post, he had led a project to construct a new building for the collections, which had raised £13.5 million. From 2004-6 he was a part-time Fellow on the Clore Leadership Programme, undertaking a bespoke scheme of training and development in cultural leadership.  Nick began his career at the Museum of London in 1986, as Curator of Prehistory and subsequently Head of the Department of Early London History and Collections. While there, he led a pioneering project called ‘The Peopling of London’ which told the story of the capital's cultural diversity from ancient times to the present. He studied archaeology at Cambridge University, and his PhD, on widening participation in museums, was published as 'Beyond The Glass Case'. He has published widely on museum studies topics, was Chair of the International Council of Museums (UK) from 2001-2004, and President of the Council for British Archaeology from 2005-2008.

 Sebastian Payne read Natural Sciences and then Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge, and then worked for about twenty years on Eastern Mediterranean prehistory, excavating on sites especially in Greece and Turkey, and working on excavated animal bones.  His zooarchaeological publications include widely-used publications on methodological issues including recovery and sample bias, and the use of ageing and measurement data.  He has recently been collaborating with Richard Evershed in Bristol on work which has shown that milking goes back to ca. 4000 BC in this country, and to ca. 6500 BC in Turkey.  In 1987, Bas joined English Heritage as Senior Zooarchaeologist.  In 1999 he became Head of English Heritage’s new Centre for Archaeology in Portsmouth; in 2002 he became Chief Scientist, responsible for English Heritage's use of science to increase our understanding and appreciation of the past, and to protect sites, monuments and landscapes.  He has recently been particularly concerned with the impact of climate change on the historic environment, and with ethical and public issues in relation to research on excavated human remains.  Bas is a past Vice-President and Executive Committee member of the International Council for Archaeozoology, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.  He contributes a regular science page to British Archaeology.

 Professor Mark Pollard is the Director of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, and Edward Hall Professor of Archaeological Science.  He has long standing research interests in the chemical investigation of archaeological materials including glasses and glazes; ceramics; metals; jet, shale, amber and other resins; bone, teeth and ivory, and various other organic residues. Research goals have often been provenance determination, but have also included the elucidation of technological processes, especially for porcelain and metals.  Mark’s research also includes the study of the processes of change in the material record. This change can occur deliberately during the manufacturing process, but may also be post-manufacture, and, usually most significantly, post-depositional taphonomy. Mark has worked on the mining and extraction processes of non ferrous metals and also researched the corrosion mechanisms of non-ferrous metals (copper alloys and lead) from a mineralogical, thermodynamic and conservation science perspective. Following on from palaeodietary research on bone, he has developed an interest in the degradation processes of human bone, hair and teeth. This has led to an investigation of the interaction between buried objects and their burial environment which has resulted in an interest in the application of geochemical modelling programs to archaeological material.

 Helen Shenton became the first Head of Collection Care at the British Library in 2002. Collection Care encompasses Conservation, Preservation, Training and Research, Collection Storage and Security and increasingly, Digital Preservation. Current projects include a new centre for conservation, the development of applied conservation research, low-oxygen storage facilities and life cycle collection management.
Helen read English Literature at University College London and trained at the London College of Printing and with the Arts and Crafts book conservator, Roger Powell. She joined the British Library in 1998 after 14 years in the Conservation Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Helen started at the V&A as a book conservator and became responsible for textiles, paper, paintings, photography and book disciplines.
She is a founding Board member of the Digital Preservation Coalition and the National Preservation Office, also chairing the NPO Preservation Administrator’s Panel.  Helen has taught and examined Masters Degree courses in Conservation and Preservation, at the University of the Arts, the Royal College of Art and School of Library Studies at UCL  Helen briefed the House of Lords Science and Technology Sub Committee on conservation research in the library and archive sector, and gave written and oral evidence at the 2007 hearing.  She is a Fellow of the International Institute of Conservation, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Accredited Conservator.

 James Tate graduated in Physics at Queen Mary College, London University, and went on to complete a PhD in experimental solid state physics, working at the Harwell AERE reactor centre as well as QMC. He then took up a post doctoral fellowship at the Physics department of Paisley College (now the University of the West of Scotland) to set up a lab for the authenticity examination of ceramics, notably those from the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, spending some time working at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology & the History of Art at Oxford. He moved to head the Research Laboratory of the National Museums of Antiquities of Scotland and then was appointed as Head of the Department of Conservation & Analytical Research the new National Museums Scotland in 1986. Since then he has combined managing the department with applied research on the national collections, mainly the application of non-destructive methods of analysis and identification. Recent collaborative work has been on the composition of historical scientific instruments, Egyptian gold, and the investigation of the technology of the earliest photographic salt prints. He has co-published around 40 papers and articles and been involved in the organisation and editing of conferences. He is co-chair of the Heritage Science group of the Institute of Conservation.

 Heather Viles is Professor of Biogeomorphology and Heritage Conservation at the University of Oxford. A geographer by training, Heather's research focuses on the weathering of rocks in extreme environments (including the Namib Desert and Mars) and the deterioration and conservation of building stone.  She is involved in several current research projects with English Heritage, including one on the use of soft wall capping as a strategy for conserving ruined monuments.  Funding for her research also comes from EPSRC, Leverhulme Trust and NASA.  In 2006-7 she convened a year long research cluster investigating the integration methodologies for the study of the historic environment.  Heather has written over 100 papers in refereed journals, and edited or co-authored 12 volumes and books.  Currently, she sits on the advisory committee of the AHRC/EPSRC Research Programme on Science and Heritage, and is Vice-President of the Royal Geographical Society and IBG (expeditions and fieldwork division).

 David Watkinson is a Reader in Conservation at Cardiff University, where he is responsible for BSc and MSc artefact conservation courses and a care of collections MSc. His research fields include metals, glass and conservation education, with a particular interest in iron corrosion and conservation. Recent work on the corrosion of chloride infested iron was used to underpin the design of an innovative conservation scheme that uses desiccation to control the corrosion of Brunel's famous iron ship ss Great Britain. David is an ICON Accredited Conservation-Restorer, a Fellow of IIC and an FSA and is active in the design and development of conservation education.

 

 

Strategy Coordinator

 Before becoming NHSS coordinator Jim Williams was the English Heritage East Midlands archaeological science advisor (RSA).  His job involved looking at ways to increase the frequency of use and the quality of science in investigating, understanding and protecting archaeology remains.  His research interest is in preservation in situ, including groundwater monitoring and construction impacts on archaeology, and he was a co-author of the recent English Heritage piling guidelines.  Previously,  he was a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield, writing project designs and funding applications to look at construction impacts on archaeological remains.  Jim has a degree in Archaeological Science from the University of Sheffield, and a PhD (Small mammal deposits in archaeology: 'a taphonomic investigation of Tyto alba (barn owl) nesting and roosting sites').  As well as studying and working in archaeology, he worked for 16 months (before and during his undergraduate degree) as a conservation assistant for Allyson McDermott.  During this time Jim was privileged to be involved with the conservation and re-instatement of wallpapers at Uppark House (the print room and the red drawing room).