About me
Pamela Hatchfield is the Emerita Head of Objects Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the 2023 Judith Praska Distinguished Professor of Conservation and Technical Studies at New York University. She currently serves as a consultant to the Italian Consiglio National di Recherche SmartECO project investigating materials and technologies to improve preservation and conservation in the museum environment. Between 2020 and 2024, she served as the Project Coordinator for Held in Trust, a collaboration between collaboration between the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) and the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) to chart the future of preservation and conservation in the United States. She co-developed the related project Climate Resilience Resources for Cultural Heritage, a suite of free resources to plan for and respond to climate change impacts.
She holds degrees from Vassar College, NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, and The Conservation Center, with post graduate work at the Harvard University Art Museums. Her conservation experience includes the Metropolitan Museum of Art, several Smithsonian Museums, and the Grenada National Museum, West Indies. Pam serves as a consultant to the Acton Collection at Villa La Pietra in Florence, Italy. Her archaeological field experience includes sites in Egypt and Sudan. In addition to numerous publications on a wide range of subjects in conservation, she also authored the seminal book: Pollutants in the Museum Environment.
Pam is a Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC), the International Institute for Conservation, and the American Academy in Rome. She served as President of the American Institute for Conservation and in numerous other leadership positions. In 2006, she received the Rome Prize, was named a “Game Changer” in 2016 by the Boston Globe, and in 2021, received the AIC Robert L. Feller Lifetime Achievement Award.
