PhD Program in Preservation Studies
The Preservation Studies Doctoral Program (PSP) at the University of Delaware is an interdisciplinary doctoral course of study that teaches the philosophies, research methodologies, and policies informing preservation efforts focused on art, architecture, landscapes, and material culture. The PSP may involve collaboration with faculty and physical resources in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Agriculture, Engineering, Human Services, Education, and Public Policy, Marine Studies, and the Winterthur Museum (which is already a collaborative partner with the University of Delaware for two graduate programs related to this new Ph.D. program).
Applicants apply to a specific area of concentration within Preservation Studies, and acceptance will be contingent upon compatibility with existing University of Delaware resources. The PSP Director will designate a pre-admissions advisory committee who will work with the applicant to design a planned program of study. The Coremans Endowment is already in place for fellowship funding for one or two doctoral students in preservation studies each year within the College of Arts and Sciences.
Follow the links below for more news on current Ph.D. faculty and students:
Documenting Delaware’s trails to freedom Prof. David Ames leading an effort to document historic Underground Railroad sites used to help slaves find their way to freedom.
The former Ph.D. Program in Art Conservation Research accepted two students in 1990, and two more in 1991.
The doctoral study required a combination of coursework in the sciences and the humanities. The six students who completed their doctorate degrees and their topics were:
Carol Aiken (1998) on “A Context for the Advanced Studies of Portrait Miniatures Painted in Oil on Metal Supports”
B. D. Nandadeva (1998) on “Materials and Techniques of Kandyan and Southern Schools of Mural Paintings of Sri Lanka: mid-eighteenth to late-nineteenth centuries.”
E. Carl Grimm (1999) on “A Study of Authenticity in Paintings Attributed to Albert Pinkham Ryder”
Susan Franz Cooperrider Lake (1999) on “The Relationship between Style and Technical Procedure: Willem de Kooning’s painting of the late 1940s and 1960s”
Elizabeth Bede (2001) on “The Surface Morphology of Limestone and its Effects on Sulfur Dioxide Deposition”
Susan Louise Buck (2003) on “The Aiken-Rhett House: A comparative architectural paint study” [Susan Buck’s dissertation won the Sypherd prize for best dissertation in the humanities in 2003.]
