Meet Our Conservation Staff

The CMA’s conservators and fellows have academic backgrounds that include art history, studio art, and chemistry as well as advanced education and training in the conservation of art and historic collections. 

Their mission is to study, preserve, and conserve the works of art in the CMA’s collection and the works of art traveling to the CMA from other museums and collections around the world. CMA conservators have trained at conservation training programs around the world, including the Fashion Institute of Technology, the Institute of Conservation of Cultural Relics and Museology at the Tainan National University of the Arts, New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, Queen’s University, Buffalo State University (SUNY) Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department, and the Winterthur / University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. CMA conservators are experts in Asian paintings, objects, paper, preventive conservation, photographs, textiles, and paintings. 

The CMA’s conservation technicians have mastered the skills needed to prepare works of art for display and storage. Utilizing their own artistic and craft knowledge and practices, combined with apprenticeship-like training, the conservation technicians create custom archival mounts, frames, and housing that showcase the art while ensuring its safety. The CMA’s technicians are experts in fine-art matting and framing, water gilding, frame restoration and reproduction, and mounting textiles.

Contact CMA conservation at conservator@clevelandart.org.

Our Conservation Staff

  1. Beth Edelstein

    Beth Edelstein
     Beth Edelstein is senior conservator of objects and head of objects conservation. She joined the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2017 and oversaw the conservation project for the museum’s Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan presented in the groundbreaking digital exhibition Revealing Krishna in 2021. This project has led to her continuing involvement in the CMA’s collaboration with the government of Cambodia to provide ongoing training and support to museum colleagues. Beth earned her dual master’s degree in conservation and art history at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and began her professional career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she worked for 14 years prior to joining the CMA. She is currently on the board of the American Institute for Conservation holding the position of director, professional education, and is cochair and cofounder of the AIC Education (K–12) Outreach Subcommittee. Beth continues to mentor graduate interns and fellows at the CMA and provides support to high school and undergraduate students interested in conservation. 
  2. Carla Fontecchio

    Carla Fontecchio
     Carla Fontecchio is the technician for textiles and works of art on paper at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She received her bachelor of fine arts degree in drawing from the Cleveland Institute of Art and studied Western papermaking with the Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory. Additionally, she was an active volunteer in the museum’s paper conservation lab. She maintains a studio practice that is dedicated to transcribing her collection of plant specimens and makes all her drawing papers and inks by hand. Carla assists in the care of some of the most light-sensitive aspects of the collection, preparing the museum’s textiles and works of art on paper for storage, display, and loan.   
  3. Robin Hanson

    Robin Hanson, Conservator of Textiles
     For 24 years, Robin Hanson has managed the textile conservation lab at the Cleveland Museum of Art. In 1997, Robin completed graduate training in textile conservation at the Winterthur / University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. Since 2015, she has served as textiles field editor for AATA Online: Abstracts of International Conservation Literature, hosted at the Getty Conservation Institute. She also serves as associate editor for textiles for the conservation community’s peer-reviewed publication, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation. 
  4. Ika Yi-Hsia Hsiao č•­ äľťéśž

    Ika Yi-Hsia Hsiao, Conservator of Asian Paintings
     Ika Yi-Hsia Hsiao is a conservator of Asian paintings specializing in Chinese paintings and thangka paintings at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Before settling in Cleveland in 2014, she was a Mellon Chinese Painting Conservation Fellow and she trained in Chinese painting conservation at the National Museum of Asian Art for a year after finishing a three-year training program at the Asian Conservation Studio at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, she monitors the condition of the Chinese paintings and takes care of the Chinese paintings with the formats of hanging scrolls, handscrolls, and Chinese album leaves. She also restores and remounts the Chinese paintings that are in poor condition. She originally came from Taiwan, where she received a master’s degree in Eastern Asian painting conservation at the Graduate Institute of Conservation of Cultural Relics and Museology at the Tainan National University of the Arts. 
  5. Julianna Ly

    Julianna Ly, Assistant Conservator of Paintings
     Julianna Ly is the associate conservator of paintings at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Since joining the CMA in 2021, Julianna has worked on several complex projects including Pintoricchio’s Virgin and Child (c. 1490–1500), Pier Francesco Foschi’s Portrait of a Woman as Saint Catherine (c. 1560), and more recently, Berthe Morisot’s Reading (1873). Julianna frequently collaborates with her curatorial and conservation colleagues on technical studies aiming to uncover artists’ materials and techniques. Notable recent technical studies have included Sandro Botticelli’s Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist (c. 1490), and Filippino Lippi’s The Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Margaret (c. 1495). Julianna received her MS from the Winterthur / University of Delaware Graduate Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC). She has held positions at institutions and private practices, including the Yale University Art Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and completed her third and final year of graduate study as the Fulbright / American Friends of the Mauritshuis intern at the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in the Hague, Netherlands. Julianna is a past assistant program chair (2023) and program chair (2024) of the Paintings Specialty Group of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC). 
  6. David Piurek

    David Piurek, Conservation Technician of Paintings and Frames
     David Piurek is the paintings and frames technician at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He assists the paintings conservation and Asian paintings conservation labs and is responsible for the frames in the CMA’s collection. Dave earned his BFA in painting from the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. Following graduation, he took employment at the Ringling Museum of Art in the conservation department, where he worked for 14 years developing his skills with gilded finishes. In 2012, Dave accepted the position at the CMA, where he specializes in water gilding and frame restoration. Dave is committed to sharing this knowledge through providing educational opportunities to interns.   
  7. Laura Gaylord Resch

    Laura Resch, Assistant Preventive Conservator
     Laura Gaylord Resch serves as assistant preventive conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As a preventive conservator, Laura works in conjunction with museum colleagues across all departments to ensure the health and long-term preservation of the collection while helping to facilitate safe and meaningful access to the artworks for the visiting public. Laura maintains a special focus on creating preservation environments for all art-holding spaces while working to find more sustainable solutions for climate management. Prior to working in Cleveland, Laura worked in collections management at Tudor Place Historic House and Garden in Washington, DC, and for preventive conservator Wendy Jessup in Arlington, Virginia. Laura obtained a bachelor of arts from the University of Delaware with majors in art conservation and art history and minors in American material culture studies and fine art. Laura serves the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) as a member of several groups, including the Materials Testing and Standards Subcommittee of the Materials Working Group; the Publications Subcommittee of the Communications Committee; the Editorial Committee of Storage Techniques for Art, Science, and History Collections website; and as vice chair of the Preventive Care Network. 
  8. Sara Ribbans

    Sara Ribbans
     Sara Ribbans is the conservator of Asian paintings at the Cleveland Museum of Art, concentrating on Japanese and Korean paintings. While Sara examines, treats, and conducts research on the entire collection of Korean and Japanese paintings, her focus since coming to the CMA has been the treatment of Japanese Buddhist paintings on silk. Prior to working at the CMA, she was an apprentice at Tominaga Beizandou in Kumamoto, Japan, before becoming a conservator at Usami Shokakudo Company in Kyoto, Japan. She holds a master of art conservation degree, concentrating on paper conservation, from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and a BFA from York University in Toronto. 
  9. Sarah Scaturro

    Sarah Scaturro
     Sarah Scaturro is the Eric and Jane Nord Chief Conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Previously, she was the head of the fashion conservation laboratory in the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the textile conservator and assistant curator of fashion at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Sarah has curated seven exhibitions on fashion and textile history at institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Most recently she cocurated the 2022 exhibition Cycles of Life: The Four Seasons Tapestries at the Cleveland Museum of Art. She has an MA from the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice program and an MPhil from Bard Graduate Center in design history and material culture studies and is completing her doctoral dissertation on the history of fashion conservation, also at Bard Graduate Center in New York City. Sarah is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation and an elected Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation. 
  10. Colleen Snyder

    Colleen Snyder, Conservator of Objects
     Colleen joined the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2010 as part of the building expansion and renovation project, where she treated the collections of medieval stained glass, central and northern European polychrome wooden sculpture, and Renaissance ceramics and bronzes. She is a 2008 graduate of the Buffalo State University (SUNY) Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department, where she majored in the care of three-dimensional art objects with a minor in archaeological materials that reflects her undergraduate degree in classics. Colleen has worked both in the US and abroad, including at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, the J. Paul Getty Villa in Malibu, and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and on archaeological excavations in Turkey and Italy. Her current long-term research project with Seth Pevnick, curator of Greek and Roman art, focuses on expanding knowledge about the CMA’s rare bronze statue of Apollo Sauroktonos, elucidating how it was cast and its original intended appearance. 
  11. Mark Spisak

    Mark Spisak, Conservation Technician
     Mark Spisak joined the Cleveland Museum of Art in September 2021 as a conservation technician for works of art on paper. He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and glass. While in college, he studied abroad at the Lacoste School of the Arts in Lacoste, France, focusing on painting, drawing, sculpture, and art history. Mark’s career after college started at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art (now moCa Cleveland), where he was an art handler as well as visitor services manager. He then moved to the Intermuseum Conservation Association (ICA), where he served as a conservation technician, and helped ICA move its facility from Oberlin, Ohio, to Cleveland in 2003. While at ICA, he also learned the skills for conservation hinging, matting, and framing. He then spent the next 17 years mastering his skills as an art handler, installer, and conservation framer at M. Gentile Studios. With a focus on oversized contemporary art, Mark has worked with many prominent art collections in Cleveland, including Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals. 
  12. Moyna Stanton

    Moyna Stanton
     Moyna Stanton joined the conservation department at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1998. As the paper conservator, she is responsible for the care of the museum’s the museum’s prints and drawings, portrait miniatures, photographs, and Western, Islamic, and Indian manuscripts. In 1992, Moyna received her MA and certificate of advanced study in art conservation from Buffalo State University (SUNY) Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department with a major in paper conservation. Following graduation, she received the Getty Fellowship at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. From 1994 to 1998, Moyna was the assistant paper conservator at the Intermuseum Conservation Association’s regional lab in Oberlin, Ohio. In the fall of 2003, she took a leave of absence from the CMA to serve as a visiting lecturer with the Buffalo State University (SUNY) Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department, where she taught the paper conservation curriculum to first- and second-year graduate students. Moyna’s research, lectures, and publications have focused on the materiality and fabrication of fine art and include a technical examination of Shaker gift drawings; deciphering historic restorations in old master prints, with an expanded study of the CMA’s unique impression of Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s Battle of the Nudes; the materials and processes for zinc-plate lithography in Paul Gauguin’s Volpini Suite; relief printing in Mabel Hewit’s white-line color woodcuts; and the working drawings of 19th-century American artist Fitz Henry Lane. 
  13. Ping-Chung Tseng (曾秉中)

    Ping-Chung Tseng
     Ping-Chung Tseng has served as the Chinese Painting Conservation Fellow in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s June and Simon K. C. Li Center for Chinese Paintings Conservation since 2022. He holds an MA in East Asian paintings conservation from the Tainan National University of the Arts and a postgraduate diploma in arts of China and art world practice from the University of Glasgow / Christie’s Education, London. He has been actively engaged in numerous conservation projects worldwide, honing his skills and knowledge at prestigious Asian painting conservation studios, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the National Palace Museum in Taipei. As the Li Center Fellow, his contributions have extended to significant conservation projects for two remarkable exhibitions: China through the Magnifying Glass: Masterpieces in Miniature and Detail and, most recently, China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta. Ping-Chung is deeply committed to conserving Chinese paintings and is intensely passionate about preserving these invaluable artworks. 
  14. Dean Yoder

    Dean Yoder, Senior Conservator of Paintings and Head of the Paintings conservation
     Dean Yoder is the Lapis Senior Conservator of Paintings and Head of Paintings Conservation at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He is responsible for managing the paintings lab and overseeing the conservation and preservation of the Western paintings collection. Dean joined the CMA as conservator of paintings in 2009 after operating his own conservation lab in Cleveland for 24 years. Dean received a BA in painting from Cleveland State University in 1980 then, in the same year, began his early training in gilding, frame restoration, and paintings conservation at the Bonfoey Company in Cleveland. In 1985, he established Yoder Conservation. In 1987 and 1988, while operating his private lab in Cleveland, he worked as a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in paintings conservation at the Intermuseum Conservation Association (ICA) in Oberlin, Ohio. For a three-month period, ending in March 2012, Dean worked as guest conservator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles conserving the CMA’s Christ with Joseph of Arimathea by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo. In 2016, Dean completed the conservation of the The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. 

Become a Conservator

Interested in exploring a career in conservation? Check out the American Institute for Conservation’s (AIC) “Become a Conservator” page to learn more about preprogram opportunities.

Assistant Preventive Conservator Laura Resch