Sheila joined the museum’s conservation team in 2008 following previous appointments at the National Park Service, Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane), Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. She received her BA in Studio Art from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and her MS in Art Conservation from the University of Delaware, Winterthur Museum.

Ainslie has worked as an Assistant Objects Conservator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts since January 2016 and prior to that was an objects conservator at the National Museum of American History. She received her MA in Art Conservation from Queen’s University in 2008 and went on to hold fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Penn Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute. She has also worked as an archaeological conservator at the site of Kaman Kalehöyük in Turkey, and at the site of El Caño in Panama.

Casey joined the VMFA Sculpture and Decorative Arts Conservation lab in October 2016. Prior to that, Casey was the Kress Fellow in Object Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She has worked at the Museums of New Mexico in Santa Fe, and the State Antiquities Museum of the Netherlands in Leiden. Casey received a MA in conservation at the UCLA/Getty Program in Conservation of Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials and previously received a MFA from Yale University

Sydney is the Andrew Mellon Conservation Photographer/Technician. Prior to joining the team, Sydney worked as Collections Information contractor at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and has additional professional experience in photography and digitization at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection and the UVA Fine and Decorative Arts Collection. She holds a BA in Art History from the University of Virginia.

Kathryn Gabrielli is the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in African Art. Prior to joining the team in June of 2016, Kate attended graduate school at the Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Art, New York University, earning an MA in Art History & Archaeology and an MS in Conservation. She has worked at the National Gallery of Art, D.C., Emory University, and the University of Denver, as well as on archaeological excavations in Greece, Italy, and France. She brings her interest in the study and treatment of painted surfaces to the project.