Greetings and welcome to the UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage.  I encourage you to explore our website, which provides detailed information about our academic and research programs, faculty, staff, students and alumni. Visitors can learn more about our interests by attending lecturers and listening to recordings of past lectures under the Events tab on the website.

Our program is comprised of four core faculty members with split appointments in Conservation, Art History, Materials Science & Engineering, and Information Studies. We engage additional cultural heritage conservation professionals and researchers as lecturers and adjunct faculty to teach and mentor our students. Our Director of Community Engagement and Inclusive Practice develops partnerships with community members, scholars, students, and collecting institutions associated with African American culture and history, and performs advocacy in the field. Our staff consists of a Student Affairs Officer and a Lab Manager. Our state of the art training labs are at the Getty Villa, but institutionally we are embedded in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, a research organization dedicated to creation, dissemination, and conservation of archaeological knowledge and heritage. The other academic program at the Cotsen Institute is the Interdepartmental Archaeology Program. We partner in joint research and programming at the Institute, and we are enriched by scholars located in departments across the university who co-teach courses and serve as advisors to our students. We also work closely with our colleagues at the Getty Conservation Institute and Getty Museum, some of whom serve as Affiliated Faculty members.

Our students and faculty perform technical research and physical interventions to preserve cultural heritage materials. In addition to working with scholars from allied fields, we collaborate with community members and caretakers who bring cultural knowledge to our investigations. These collaborations inform conservation decision-making and aid in critical understanding of cultural heritage.

Our core program values are Collaboration, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, and Sustainability. Through the Andrew W. Mellon Opportunity for Diversity in Conservation  initiative, we offer conservation workshops and mentoring to participants from underrepresented populations. Additional grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities allow students and faculty advance sustainability in the field, from investigating “green” chemicals in our labs to researching the impact of climate change on cultural heritage.

Enjoy your visit and please do not hesitate to contact us for further information.

Glenn Wharton
Lore and Gerald Cunard Chair, UCLA/Getty Conservation Program
Professor, Art History and Conservation of Material Culture
University of California, Los Angeles