Current Students
2027 Students
Evelynn Bird
Evelynn earned a BA in art history and arts management from the University of San Francisco. She was a pre-program intern at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, where she treated indigenous objects. Evelynn held positions at Arte Americas in Fresno and Cross Museum Services in Washington, D.C. in addition to completing an apprenticeship program where she trained at the LA County Museum of Art, Academy Museum, LA County Arts, and Autry Museum. She spent her summer surveying baskets at the Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center in Salamanca, NY.
Madison Conliffe
Madison studied at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study as a Gallatin Newington-Cropsey Foundation Fellow and graduated with a BA in art history. She held pre-program positions at New York University’s Barbara Goldsmith Preservation and Conservation Department and the New York Public Library. Madison was also a Harvard Art Museums Junior Conservation Fellow where she trained in the paintings, frames, objects, and paper labs. This summer, she was a paintings conservation intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Eva Marie Fuchillo
Eva Marie attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA where they earned a BA and studied abroad in both New Zealand and Japan. Before coming to Buffalo, they held several pre- program positions in Philadelphia as a conservation technician at the Penn Museum of Archae- ology and Anthropology, Linda Lennon Objects Conservation, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Eva Marie also participated in two archaeological field schools in Olympia, WA and spent last summer interning at the Maine State Museum in Augusta treating the St. Mary shipwreck.
Rebecca Heyman
Rebecca recently returned from the Netherlands where she completed a summer internship in paintings conservation at the Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg (SRAL). She has a BA in studio art, art history, and chemistry from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN and was a pre-program lab assistant in the paintings conservation studio at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. Rebecca was also a digital volunteer for the Smithsonian Archives, a volunteer at the Harbor History Museum in Gig Harbor, WA, and a conservation technician at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Victoria Kitirattragarn
Victoria was a conservation technician at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA working in the objects, textile, and paintings conservation labs. She was also a pre-program intern at Studio TKM Associates in Somerville, MA where she focused on paper conservation. Further- more, Victoria spent time as a pre-program intern at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and earned a BFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. She recently returned from Athens, Greece where she was an archaeological conservation intern at the ancient Agora.
Cindy Moreno
Cindy earned a BA in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles where she returned for a 2025 summer internship at UCLA Libraries. She was selected to participate in the Mellon Opportunity for Diversity in Conservation internship program at the Straus Center for Conservation at Harvard Museums followed by a position as a Getty post-baccalaureate conservation intern at both the J. Paul Getty Museum and then the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Cindy was also a pre-program Getty Conservation intern at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.
Megan O'Brien
Megan went to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where she earned a BA in art history and served as a research assistant as well. She completed pre-program internships in Minneapolis, MN at KCI Conservation and the Midwest Art Conservation Center in both objects and paintings conservation. Megan was also a conservation intern at the National Parks Service, Harpers Ferry Center, WV where she worked in five labs treating artifacts from nine National Park Service sites. This summer, she interned at the University of Iowa Libraries in book conservation.
Charlotte Shepard
Charlotte has a BFA in painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in addition to completing Chemistry for Conservators at the International Academic Projects program. She was an art and archival assistant at The Union League of Philadelphia and a pre-program intern at Carole Abercauph Paintings Conservation. Charlotte was also an art teacher at the Made Institute for Fashion in Philadelphia in fashion illustration and was a pre-program intern at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art. She spent her summer in Cleveland interning at ICA Art Conservation.
Yuanzhen Song
Yuanzhen was a pre-program intern at The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., before starting her graduate studies in Buffalo. She attended the University of California, Berkele,y where she earned a BA in the history of art and participated in the Mellon Opportunity for Diversity in Conservation workshop after graduation. Yuanzhen was also a pre-program intern at both The National Portrait Gallery and Archival Art Services in Washington, D.C. She returned to D.C. this summer for an internship at Nishio Conservation Studio.
Samantha Tepper
Samantha was a book and paper intern at the Conservation Centre at the Penn State Library in State College, PA. She then went on to positions at the Amstel House Museum in New Castle, DE and as a studio assistant at the Winterthur Museum. Before starting graduate school, Samantha was a conservation technician at The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York, NY and earned a BA in art history from The Pennsylvania State University. This summer, she interned at Scott Gerson Conservation in New York City in modern/contemporary art on paper.
2026 Students
Sam Ayvazian-Hancock
Sam earned a BA in ancient, medieval, and modern history from Durham University in the UK and a graduate diploma in conservation from West Dean College. She interned at the Redwood Library and was a collections care technician at the Newport Restoration Foundation, both in Newport, RI. Sam was also a conservation technician at the Weismann Preservation Center at Harvard University Libraries in Cambridge. Last summer, she interned at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia and is currently spending her third year at Dartmouth College Library in Hanover, NH.
Mackenzie Becker
Mackenzie attended Capital University in Columbus, OH where she earned a BA in art therapy and was a conservation technician at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. She was a conservation intern at Ruth Barach Cox Paintings Conservation and Duke University Libraries, both in Durham, NC. In addition, Mackenzie held positions at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami as both a preventative con- servation technician and conservation coordinator. She recently completed a summer internship at the Brooklyn Museum and is currently a third-year intern at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Elena Best
Elena completed a summer internship in objects conservation at the Field Museum in Chicago and is now a third-year intern in objects conservation there. She attended Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she earned a BFA in photography and was a conservation intern at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in the Parsons Conservation Lab. Elena was also a conservation technician at both Andrea Pitsch Conservation and The Better Image, both private conservation practices in New York City. In addition, she was President of Georgia State University’s photo society, Exlucis.
Margaret Canfield
Margaret was a conservation technician at Princeton University Library in New Jersey before starting her graduate studies in Buffalo. She earned a BA in the history of art from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY where she worked in the library conservation lab and interned at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Margaret was also an American Conservation Experience Curatorial Fellow at Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park in Cornish, NH. She is currently a third-year intern in photograph conservation at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Stephanie Gold
Stephanie has a BA in chemistry and the history of art and architecture from Boston University. She gained extensive pre-program experience at The Williamstown Art Conservation Center in Williamstown, MA where she interned in the paintings, paper, textiles, and objects conservation labs. Stephanie has also worked as a Smithsonian digital volunteer and is a successful watercolor artist. She spent a summer as a paintings conservation intern at the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey and is now a third-year intern at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
Caitlin Green
Caitlin was a pre-program intern at The Preservation Society of Newport County in Newport, RI. She earned a BA with dual majors in art history and studio art from Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH in addition to completing an MA in the history of art and architecture from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Caitlin was also a pre-program intern at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and at Amann+Estabrook Conservation Assoc. in New York City. This year, she is a paintings conservation intern at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Greta Llanes Serrano
Greta earned a BFA in printmaking from The Cooper Union School of Art in New York, in addition to a certificate in bookbinding from The North Bennet Street School in Boston. While in Boston, Greta was a book conservation intern at The Frances Loeb Library and The Boston Athenaeum. Her pre-program experience includes conservation technician positions at both The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and The New-York Historical Society in Manhattan. Greta is currently a third-year book conservation intern at The Frick Collection in New York.
Kelsey Marino
Kelsey attended the University of Delaware in Newark where she earned a BA in art conservation and was a studio and teaching assistant in the Winterthur paintings conservation lab. Before starting her graduate studies, she was a conservation technician at deGhetaldi Fine Art Restoration LLC, Longevity Art Preservation LLC, the New Castle Historical Society, and Albertson and Nunan, Inc. Kelsey is also creator of the Private Project: An Art Conservation podcast and is spending her third year as a paintings conservation intern at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
Katherine Miromonti
Katherine completed a summer internship at the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis and is currently a third-year intern in book conservation at the Library of Congress. She attended the University of Denver earning a BFA in pre-art conservation and had pre-program positions as an IMLS intern at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and collections intern for Léo Marchutz’s catalogue raisonné in Aix-en- Provence. Katherine also had internships at Mountain States Conservation in Colorado Springs, Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, and the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle.
Paola Valentin Irizarry
Paola is a third-year intern at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and earned a BA in the history of art from the University of Puerto Rico in addition to a graduate certificate in preservation from the University of Valencia. She was a pre-program intern at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX and held several positions at the Museum of History, Anthropology & Art at the University of Puerto Rico. Paola also had conservation internships at the National Gallery of Art and the National Museum of American History and spent a summer interning at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.
Class of 2025 Alumni
Devon Blankenbaker
Devon was a Mellon LACE fellow and earned a BA in art history from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in addition to attending the Brooks Institute to study photography. Before starting his graduate studies, he was an assistant exhibition coordinator and a conservation intern at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. While at the University of Virginia, Devon was also both a collections management and exhibition intern at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection which features one of the best indigenous Australian art collections in the world. During the summer of 2023, he was an intern in book conservation at Emory University's Woodruff Library in Atlanta and has been active in the department's Equity & Inclusion Committee. Devon completed a third-year book conservation internship at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C and is now the Conservator for Special Collections at Cornell University.
Elise Cabral
Elise is originally from San Diego where she was a pre-program Mellon Fellow in Paper Conservation at the Balboa Art Conservation Center. She earned an MA in modern and contemporary art history, theory, and criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Elise was also an advanced book conservation intern and summer lab manager at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, WY and spent the summer of 2023 interning in paper and photograph conservation at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX. Elise was a third-year intern at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and post-graduation, she is now a Research Conservator there, working on creating guidelines for treatment with citrates. Starting in 2026, she will be a Temporary Associate Book/Paper Conservator at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Sophie Church
Sophie came to Buffalo from Arizona where she was a conservation assistant at both the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, and the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records in Phoenix. She attended the University of Arizona in Tucson earning an MA in art history. While at the U of A, she was the objects conservation intern at the Arizona State Museum and a student assistant in the University Libraries and Special Collections. Sophie also earned a BA in comparative cultural studies from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and spent the summer of 2023 as a photograph conservation intern at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, TX. She is currently a third-year intern at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., studying photograph conservation where she is continuing as the postgraduate Harper-Inglis Fellow in Photograph Conservation as of this fall.
Vu Do
Vu is a Fulbright Vietnamese Student Scholar and was an associate lecturer at Vietnam National University teaching Art and Design Materials for Business Management before coming to Buffalo. He has a BFA in paintings from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia where his work was exhibited in several student shows. Vu is an accomplished artist and lecturer who has taught at both The Painter’s Studio and Wellspring Hanoi International Bilingual School in Vietnam. He hopes to return to Vietnam after his graduate studies to promote the conservation of cultural relics. Vu recently completed a graduate summer internship at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art and also attended the 7th Forbes Symposium on Scientific Research in the Field of Asian Art hosted by the museum in 2023. He completed a third-year internship at the National Gallery of Art in the objects conservation lab. After graduation, Vu will return to Vietnam to complete the Fulbright program and in October 2025, he will return to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art as the Gretchen and David Welch Fellow.
Renata Gumkowska
Renata earned a BA in art history and studio art from Hunter College in New York, NY in addition to studying life drawing at The Arts Students League of New York. While in the city, she was a pre-program intern at the American Museum of Natural History in the Anthropology Department and a collections assistant at the American Folk Art Museum. Renata was also a conservation assistant at Luca Bonetti, Corp., a private conservation practice in New York and a summer intern at Aurora Art Conservation in Grand Island, NY. She completed a third-year internship in paintings conservation at the Cleveland Museum of Art and is now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a two-year-long Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Paintings Conservation.
Sutton Hastman
Sutton completed a third-year internship at the National Park Service in Harper's Ferry, WV in the objects conservation lab. Before starting her graduate studies, she was an art conservation technician for several years with Richmond Conservation Studio in Virginia where she gained experience in paintings, objects, and paper conservation treatments. Sutton earned both a BS in chemistry and a BA in art history from Mary Baldwin College (now University) in Staunton, VA where she won The Ulysse Desportes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Art History. She was also a custom framer at Michael’s in the fine arts department and spent a summer interning at the Cleveland Museum of Art in the objects conservation lab. Sutton is currently a contract conservator in West Virginia.
Charlotte Starnes
Charlotte was a Mellon LACE fellow and earned a BA in art history from Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL in addition to a second BA in international relations and global affairs from Eckerd College in Saint Petersburg, FL. While attending Eckerd College, she studied abroad in Honduras, Malta, Ghana, and England. Before starting her graduate studies, Charlotte was an archaeological conservation laboratory intern at the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research Conservation Lab in addition to holding positions at both the Florida State University Special Collections and the Georgia State Archives in Morrow. In 2023, she had a busy summer attending Rare Book School in London and interning at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Charlotte completed a third-year internship at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. in the book conservation lab.
Sara Thornburg
Before starting her graduate studies, Sara had three conservation internships at the Harpers Ferry Center, Museum Conservation Services division of the National Park Service in Charles Town, WV. She was also a custom framer at Michael’s Stores where she worked on fragile pieces along with doing mats and preservation design. Sara is an accomplished illustrator and attended the Columbus College of Art and Design, where she earned a BFA in illustration in addition to attending an AIC Preventive Conservation Workshop at the Staatsburgh State Historic Site in NY. During the summer of 2023, she interned at Spicer Art Conservation in Delmar, NY where she focused on textile conservation, treating a flag from the women’s suffrage movement. Sara was a third-year intern at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia in the textile conservation lab where she is be continuing after graduation as the Marshall Steel Post Graduate Fellow in Textile Conservation.
Madison Whitesell
Madison attended James Madison University (JMU) in Harrisonburg, VA where she earned a BA in studio art and art history with a concentration in museum studies. While at JMU, she held positions at the Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Arts, the Visual Resources Center, and the preservation and special collections department of the Carrier Library. Madison was also a conservation technician at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD and a studio assistant at Brydgeworks Glass Studio in Harrisonburg, VA where she taught stained glass workshops. During the summer of 2023, she completed a graduate summer internship in textiles conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Madison is spent her third year of graduate studies interning at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in the objects conservation lab and is currently the Jenrette Fellow at Historic New England in Haverhill, MA.
Grace Wilkins
Before beginning her graduate studies at Buffalo State, Grace graduated in 2020 with a bachelor's degree in neuroscience from Brown University. She was a pre-program intern at both the Brooklyn Museum and Gawain Weaver Art Conservation, a private practice photograph conservation firm in California. Grace worked as a graduate intern at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the summer of 2023, and at Glenstone in Potomac, Maryland in the summer of 2024. Grace spent her third year as a graduate intern in the Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. After receiving her graduate degree, Grace is currently the Engen Conservation Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.