I am a researcher and lecturer at the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, The University of Melbourne. My research focusses on active citizenship to develop regionally relevant and inclusive conservation actions for works of art in tropical Southeast Asia, under the auspices of APTCCARN (Asia Pacific Tropical Climate Conservation Art Research Network, www.aptccarn.com), and I have a number of PhD and minor thesis supervisions in this area.

As a co-founding member of APTCCARN, I have co-convened four international meetings in Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines since 2009. In 2017, I co-convened a meeting on ‘Natural disasters and cultural heritage in the Philippines: Knowledge sharing, decision making and conservation’, Tagbilaran City and Towns on the island of Bohol, the Philippines with the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP), Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts (SEAMEO SPAFA) (www.aptccarn.com/5th-meeting), and was an IIAS Affiliated Fellow at the University of Leiden, Netherlands (Sept-Nov 2017).

Since 2013, I have been the Chief Editor of the AICCM Bulletin, the Australia Institute for Cultural Materials Conservation’s peer reviewed journal published by Routledge Taylor and Francis. In the recent 10 years I have 38 publications: 16 journal articles (10 peer reviewed), 10 conference proceedings (8 peer reviewed), 5 book chapters (5 peer reviewed), and 7 editorials (and a further 10 papers in submission in peer reviewed outlets). In 2016 I was awarded the AICCM Conservator of the Year, in 2015 the AICCM Award for an ‘Outstanding Service to cultural materials research’ (with R Sloggett and role in the ARC Linkage Proposal ‘The Twentieth Century in Paint’), in 2014 an Australian Endeavour Executive Award hosted by the National Museum of the Philippines, and in 2010 an Australian Research Council Postdoctorate Fellowship investigating ‘The Twentieth Century in Paint’ and an earlier a PhD focusing on ‘The Characterisation of Oil Paintings in Tropical Southeast Asia’ with collaborating partners in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. I collectively document and research material culture to build new knowledge and use the tools of conservation actions to provide access to communities and individuals to examine their identity. Documentation and non –invasive investigative tools include the development of user-friendly digital methods such as in situ dynamic laser speckle analysis, photogrammetry and RTI.