Mark Anderson received an interdisciplinary BA from the University of Maryland, Catonsville. The degree combined chemistry, art history, and museum studies. He previously attended  the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. His coursework at Catonsville was augmented by his partnership in a Baltimore firm specializing in furniture making and antique restoration. In 1984 Anderson began a Fellowship at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and was subsequently offered a position as Assistant Conservator of Furniture. In addition to treating wooden artifacts in the Foundation’s collection he also assisted in the reproduction of several important pieces of furniture including an exact copy of a 1767 ornately carved Masonic Master’s Chair by Benjamin Bucktrout. Anderson accepted a position as a furniture conservator at Winterthur Museum in 1986 and concurrently began teaching for WUDPAC. In 1989 he was made a faculty member of the Smithsonian Institution Conservation Analytical Laboratory’s Furniture Conservation Training Program. He has consulted for The White House, The U.S. Capitol, Old Senate Chamber, Monticello, The National Gallery of Art, Kauffman Collection and other  public and private collections. Anderson has been a regular lecturer for professional audiences and often collaborates with museum curators and scientists for his work on regional furniture history and technical aspects of furniture materials. The topics range from a study on the origins and construction of Pennsylvania Moravian easy chairs produced within a religious community to a scientific investigation of elemental sulfur used as an inlay material in American furniture. Anderson held the position of Elizabeth Terry Seaks Senior Conservator of Furniture at Winterthur prior to his retirement in 2020.