Jessica Walthew is an objects conservator at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. She has worked in conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, The Frick Collection, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Penn Museum. Her research interests include theory and practice in archaeological and ethnographic conservation, best practices in documentation, and technical research in art history and archaeology. At Bard Graduate Center she was a 2016-2017 Andrew W. Mellon Cultures of Conservation Fellow and worked on a joint project with the American Museum of Natural History, focusing on their Northwest Coast collection. She co-taught Damage, Decay, and Conservation with Ivan Gaskell in Fall 2016. In Fall 2017 she will co-teach “In Focus: Native Arts of the Northwest Coast—Ethnography, Museums, and Conservation” with Aaron Glass.