St. Mary’s College student Amanda Siskey ’19, participated in a 10-week internship at University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Summer Research Program in Baltimore at the Interface between Science and Art (SCIART). The program is meant for high performing science and engineering undergraduate students with a diverse background and strong interest in art conservation science and engineering.
According to Siskey, “I worked in a student-led research team under Zeev Rosenzweig and Dan Rowlands in the chemistry department and partnered with the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Along with conducting research in a laboratory setting, I also was given the opportunity to get a ‘behind the scenes’ look at various art museums in the nation: Walters Art Museum, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I was able to tour the conservation labs and get a hands-on look at the various machinery conservation scientists use to analyze and preserve the works of art.
The specific research I did in the program had to do with a problem that conservation scientists deal with on a day-to-day basis: removing tarnish from gilded silver objects with both mechanical (cosmetic sponges) and chemical (acidified thiourea solution) methods. Through my internship, I learned how closely related conservation science was to analytical chemistry, which will be my main focus when I apply to graduate school.”
