We’re thrilled to welcome speakers from around the world to Icon 26 - a vibrant gathering of conservation professionals sharing ideas, research, and inspiration
From emerging voices to leading experts, our speakers represent the breadth and depth of the conservation community, exploring the future of cultural heritage together.
Anisha Gupta
Anisha Gupta is a cultural heritage conservator, educator, and doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware. Her research is centered on community conservation, where she studies the conservation practices and priorities of everyday people. Anisha is a leader in advocating for equity and accessibility in the field. She served as the co-chair of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC)’s Equity & Inclusion Committee where she spearheaded initiatives focused on systemic and cultural change. In 2022, she was awarded the Gettens Award for Outstanding Service to AIC.
Anna Kowalewska
Anna Kowalewska, MA, is a book and paper conservator working at her independent conservation studio and also a Principal Registrar at The Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw, Poland. She has over 20 years of experience in art conservation and work with the museum collections. In 2023 she started a PhD project at Academia Copernicana, Torun, Poland developing the use of micro CT in the pre-conservation analysis of historical bookbindings. She recently presented lectures at AIC 2025 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis and at IADA 2025 Leuven symposium.
Anupama Gaur
Anupama Gaur is a painting conservator and heritage consultant with over twenty years of experience in the conservation and preventive care of artworks. She is the Founder and Director of ARC Resources & Services, a private conservation studio in New Delhi, which provides conservation expertise to leading museums, galleries, and private collections. Trained in India and the UK, her practice focuses on Indian modern and contemporary art. Through ARC, Anupama has collaborated on numerous conservation projects spanning across India for institutions such as the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi Art Gallery, Gujral Foundation in Delhi, and Theosophical Society in Chennai.
Chiara Mazzocchi
Associate professor at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw. Main research interests are nuclear physics and its application to cultural heritage studies, with focus on those methodologies that are non-invasive. In the field of cultural heritage, works in particular with computed tomography, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and gamma spectroscopy of natural radioactivity contained in artifacts.
Diane Gwilt
Diane Gwilt BSc(Hons), FIIC, is Head of Capital Projects - Collections at Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales (ACMW). After initially working for the British Museum and the National Trust, she joined ACMW in 1991 as senior conservator in the Department of Archaeology. Since then, she has taken on roles across a wide range of functional areas of the museum, with a focus on collection care, project and risk management. Publishing on a range of topics, she has been an external examiner for Durham University and an Associate Lecturer at Cardiff University. Previously Chair of both UKIC and ICON and a member of the Arts Council England’s Accreditation Committee and Designation Panel.
Emma Callaghan
Emma is a Conservator at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, having completed the Cultural Heritage Conservator Apprenticeship in 2025 with the University of Lincoln and Icon. Her work is largely focused on supporting the conservation of HMS Trincomalee and HMS Caroline in Hartlepool and Belfast, and the preventive conservation of the stores and galleries on site.
Emma holds the Emerging Professionals seat at Icon’s Board of Trustees, and is passionate about diversifying routes into the profession, representing and supporting current and future emerging professionals to ensu
Eve Andreski
After graduating in Fine Art from Wimbledon College of Art in 2010, Heather began her conservation career advising Clients on framing and care of artworks including use of materials, preparation of works for display and environmental conditions. She went on to complete a Masters degree in the Conservation of Artworks on Paper, working for institutions including BFI National Archive and The Royal Collection. Prior to joining Spencer & Fry in 2022, Heather was a Conservation Team Leader at the British Library. She takes the lead on paper and plastics at Spencer & Fry.
Heather Murphy
After graduating in Fine Art from Wimbledon College of Art in 2010, Heather began her conservation career advising Clients on framing and care of artworks including use of materials, preparation of works for display and environmental conditions. She went on to complete a Masters degree in the Conservation of Artworks on Paper, working for institutions including BFI National Archive and The Royal Collection. Prior to joining Spencer & Fry in 2022, Heather was a Conservation Team Leader at the British Library. She takes the lead on paper and plastics at Spencer & Fry.
Helena Jaeschke ACR
Helena Jaeschke ACR, FIIC, trained in conservation at Cardiff University and has worked as an objects and archaeological conservator for sites and museums in Egypt, Oman and the UK.
Jane Henderson ACR
Professor of Conservation and Secretary General of the International Institute for Conservation until Jan 2026 Jane Henderson is chair of the BSI standard group B/560 concerned with the conservation of Tangible Cultural heritage and a European expert for European standards body CEN TC 346. Jane serves on the editorial panel of the Journal of the Institute for Conservation and the Science Museum Journal and on the board of the Welsh Federation of Museum and Art Galleries. Jane was delighted and honoured to win the Plowden medal in 2021. Currently (2025) employed at Cardiff University.
Jo Valentine
Jo Valentine has worked with the local community for the past 20 years. She believes that museums are here to help make a more equitable society and part of that is to create a greater understanding of everyone's experiences connected to the Royal Navy's story. We can't go back 100 years and speak to sailors and communities not represented in our archive about their lives, but what we can do is ask them now so that future generations stories are included, made visible and celebrated in our museums.
Joelle Wickens
Joelle Wickens (she/her) is assistant professor of Preventive Conservation, in the Department of Art Conservation, University of Delaware. Her current work in preventive conservation is dedicated to evolving the practice of the specialty to place social, economic, and environmental sustainability at its core. This work intertwines with her work using the lenses of systems thinking, disability justice, universal design, and systemic racism to work with the field of art conservation to broaden its understanding of what cultural heritage is, diversify who conserves this heritage, and bring multiple and non-dominant ways of knowing and doing to the conservation process.
Kirsten Dunne ACR
Kirsten Dunne ACR is Senior Projects Conservator at the National Galleries of Scotland, where she has worked since 2005. She trained in Paper Conservation but since 2019 her role has focused on Time Based Media, Microfading and the application of technology to conservation practice, including conservation created data and documentation. Kirsten sits on the committee of the American Institute of Conservation International Microfading Discussion group, acting as Information Repository Officer. She holds an MA in Conservation of Fine Art, Works of Art on Paper from Northumbria University and an MA in History of Art from Edinburgh University
Laurence Wen-Yu Li
Laurence is an AHRC and Taiwan Ministry of Education funded PhD candidate based at the V&A / RCA History of Design Programme. Her thesis explores the production
and consumption of the silk ribbons used on late Qing (1860-1911) Chinese women’s clothing. Other research interests include the use of reconstruction as a methodological approach in the field of historic Chinese dress. She is particularly passionate about making research on historic Chinese dress more accessible to a
global English-speaking audience and has written and presented a series of publicly-available documentaries on YouTube titled Chinese Clothing Through the Ages.
Maria Ledinskaya
Maria Ledinskaya is an objects and preventive conservator with over 10 years of experience working with museum collections in the UK and internationally. She trained at the University of Lincoln and has held conservation roles at M+ in Hong Kong, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich, and Wiltshire Council’s Conservation and Museums Advisory Service (CMAS).
Her work spans preventive care, object conservation, and conservation training, with a focus on practical solutions tailored to different buildings, teams, and collections. Maria is especially interested in how preventive conservation intersects with environmental sustainability, risk management, and agile ways of working.
Viviane Wei-An Chen
Viviane Wei-An Chen is a fashion and textile conservator with over a decade of experience across museums, theatre, and exhibition projects. She trained in costume interpretation at Wimbledon College of Arts and holds an MPhil in Textile Conservation from the University of Glasgow. Her international career spans seven countries, with work undertaken for institutions including the V&A, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, M+ Hong Kong, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her practice combines material sensitivity with cross-cultural insight, grounded in the belief that every textile merit close study and careful display within its cultural and historical context.