As Deputy Director-General for Museums at the National Museum of the Philippines, Dr. Labrador is responsible for research development, museology and technical assistance, making collections and sites accessible in four flagship museums in Manila and 15 in different parts of the country. She is also a member of the ICOM’s Standing Committee for Museum Definition, which is shaping a new definition for museums worldwide.

Annissa Gultom has 15 years of museum work experiences with some community related projects in West Papua, Baduy and Bali. She currently the Manager of Museum Department in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE. Her department works with local Emirati communities in developing heritage-themed exhibitions and further use of collection that connects archaeology and ethnography.

Awhina Tamarapa is a Māori curator, writer and descendant of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Ruanui tribes from Aotearoa New Zealand.  She is a teaching associate and PhD student in the Museum and Heritage Studies programme at Victoria University, Wellington, Te Herenga Waka. She holds a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from Massey University, a Bachelor of Māori Laws and Philosophy from Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Otaki, and a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University, Wellington, majoring in Anthropology.

She is a former Curator Māori for Te Papa and editor of Whatu Kākahu: Māori Cloaks (2011, 2019) by Te Papa Press, Wellington.

Photo credit © Tatsiana Chypsanava

Barbara Borghese has a BA in Conservation from Camberwell College of Arts and an MA in Museums and Galleries Management from City University London. She previously worked for the Postal Museum in London, as IDP International Project Coordinator at the British Library, and at Historic Royal Palaces.

Barbara Plankensteiner is director of the MARKK since 2017. Under her leadership, the museum initiated a comprehensive repositioning and decolonization process. Before, from 2015 she was Senior Curator of African Art at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, and previously served as Deputy Director, Chief Curator, and long-term Curator of the Africa Collection at the Weltmuseum Wien.

Plankensteiner is co-founder and with Prince Gregory Akenzua co-speaker of the Benin Dialogue Group, as well as co-initiator of the Digital Benin Project.

Dr Catherine Smith is an objects conservator and academic at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Her research on pre-contact Māori textiles brings together Māori weaving practitioners and materials science to explore the intersections between Mātauranga Māori and Western science.  Catherine is also interested in interrogating and progressing museum and conservation practice.

Diana Gabler is an objects conservator at MARKK since August 2021 specializing in the care and treatment of cultural materials. She studied conservation of archaeological, ethnographic, and decorated arts‘ objects at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart (2007-2012) and has been working as an objects conservator in museums such as the Ethnological Museum in Berlin (2013-2015), the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. (Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, 2015-2018) and the American Museum of Natural History in New York (2018-2019); most recently in private practice in Berlin. As a PhD student in Social and Cultural Anthropology at LMU Munich her research focuses on collaborative conservation as a tool to support the opening up of museum practices to Indigenous communities.

Ellen Pearlstein incorporates Indigenous instruction into graduate conservation education. Ellen is director of the Andrew W. Mellon Opportunity for Diversity in Conservation, a Keck Prize awardee, and recent recipient of a Rome Prize. She is completing the upcoming Conservation and Stewardship of Indigenous Collections: Changes and Transformations, in the GCI’s Readings in Conservation series.

Farideh Fekrsanati received her MA in objects conservation from the State Academy of Fine Art and Design Stuttgart, Germany and was appointed Head of Conservation Department at Museum am Rothenbaum, Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK) in Hamburg, Germany in 2019. Prior to her appointment in Hamburg, she has worked with institutions in Germany, United States of Amerika, United Arab Emirates and the Netherlands. Her work and research interests centre around cultural material in the context of museums and are primarily in the areas of access to collections, collaborative and sustainable approaches to conservation practice, collections use, preventive conservation and risk management.

Gabriel Nodea has held leadership positions as Chairman Warmun Art Centre, and is a Director and past Deputy Director of Arnhem Northern and Kimberley Artists (ANKA). Gabriel is Gija Research Fellow at the Grimwade Centre, and holds post-graduate qualifications in the Centre’s Specialist Certificate in Cross Cultural Conservation and Heritage.

Heidi Swierenga is Senior Conservator and Head of the Collections Care, Management and Access Department at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her practice and research focus on the use and activation of Indigenous belongings that are held in collections and the role that the conservation profession plays in facilitating these activities.

Hélia Marçal is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Art, Materials, and Technology at University College London‘s Department of History of Art and an integrated researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History (NOVA University Lisbon). She previously worked in the project “Reshaping the Collectible: When Artworks Live in the Museum” at Tate (2018-2020), and has held the position of Coordinator of the Working Group on Theory, History, and Ethics of Conservation of the International Council of Museums Committee for Conservation since 2016.

Jane Henderson is the Secretary General International Institute for Conservation. Jane serves on the editorial panel of the Journal of the Institute for Conservation, the trustee board of the Welsh Federation of Museums and serves on the European and British standards bodies concerned with the conservation of Tangible Cultural heritage.

Ms. Johanna Ndahekelekwa Nghishiko, Conservator at the National Museum of Namibia
for Ethnographic Collections, under the Gerda Henkel Foundation Project. She holds a Postgraduate
Diploma in Heritage Conservation Management, a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Resources Management
(Conservation) and currently pursuing an MA in History (by thesis), looking into “The History of Indigenous
skin tanning processes and Leather Conservation Methods among Ovaherero Communities” and a Master
of Science in Tangible Heritage Conservation.

Background in polymer chemistry and paper-based ​heritage. Conservation scientist at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (1997-2003) and ICCROM (2005-2008). International work on ​​risk management for cultural heritage since 2005. Back at ICCROM since 2018, manages the Strategic Planning Unit and a portfolio of projects on ​​collections, risk management, and sustainability.

Kelly McHugh is the Head of Collections Care and Stewardship at the National Museum of the American Indian.  Previously, she served as an object conservator where she began working for the museum in 1996.  As a conservator she played an active role in the development of collaborative conservation practices for the care of Native American collections.  She continues to work toward shared stewardship through collections access, cultural protocol policy and artistic revitalization.

Dr. Laura Van Broekhoven is the Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. She holds a Professorial Fellowship at Linacre College and is associated with the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography. Laura strives to develop a more equitable decolonised praxis in museums including issues around shared and negotiated authority; restitution, reconciliation and redress and the queering of exclusionary binaries and boundaries with relation to social justice and inclusion.

Lynley Nargoodah is Chairwoman at Mangkaja Arts, and a Director of Arnhem Northern and Kimberley Artists (ANKA). She is dedicated to conservation to ensure culture continues across generations. Lynley is Indigenous Scholar-In-Residence at the Grimwade Centre, and graduate of the Specialist Certificate in Cross Cultural Conservation and Heritage.

Dr. Monica Hanna is an international figure in the world of Archaeology. Currently, she is an associate professor and the acting Dean of the College of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT) in Aswan, Egypt where she has founded a program specialized in Archaeology and Cultural heritage with eight departments. Her current research focuses on decolonizing and democratizing archaeology, repatriation, and restitution amongst methods for accessibility for the wider public to archaeology and heritage with particular interest in digital humanities. In 2020, she was awarded a research grant as part of Action for Restitution in Africa in collaboration with University of Oxford and University of South Africa. In 2021, she was awarded the most 50 influential women in Egypt.

Dr. Renata F. Peters is Associate Professor in Conservation at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL), and Head Conservator of the Olduvai Geochronology Archaeology Project (OGAP), a cross-disciplinary project in Tanzania supported by the European Research Council (ERC). She has recently published the edited volume ‘Heritage Conservation and Social Engagement’. Download here.

Robyn Sloggett is Cripps Foundation Chair and Director of the Grimwade Centre, the University of Melbourne. Her research includes: the investigation of artists’ materials and techniques; attribution and authentication; collection development and history; community engagement in conservation; and the preservation of cultural materials in Australian Indigenous communities.

Shadreck Chirikure holds a British Academy Global Professorship within the School of Archaeology at Oxford. He is Professor of Archaeology, Director of the Archaeological Materials Laboratory, Director of the African Heritage Hub and Research Centre, and a former Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cape Town.

Sonja Schwoll has an MA in Art History, the Freie Universitaet Berlin, and an MA in Conservation, Camberwell College of Arts. Sonja used to run a London-based book conservation studio. She also was lecturer for Book Conservation at West Dean College and Camberwell College of the Arts.  She has supported professional conservation bodies in various capacities.

Stefan Michalski retired from the Canadian Conservation Institute after 40 years as a scientist and advisor specializing in climate control, lighting, and risk management. He was the primary author of the specifications in the original 1999 ASHRAE chapter on museums and archives, and contributed to the revisions for the 2019 edition.

Valerie Magar is a conservator and archaeologist, specializing in archaeological conservation and in history of conservation. She has worked in Mexico at the national conservation centre, of which she became the head between 2013 and 2016. She worked at ICCROM between 2004-2010, and she returned in 2018, where is Manager of the Programmes Unit.