Margaret Veall

Conservation Scientist, Conservation Science Division

Main areas of work and/or specializations

• archaeological materials
• artists’ materials
• natural products
• pesticides
• hafting technology
• gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)
• pyrolysis-GC-MS

Biography

Margaret Veall earned a B.Sc. (Hons) in Anthropology from Lakehead University in 2012 and a Ph.D. in Archaeological Science from the University of Oxford in 2019, with a focus in the characterization of archaeological materials by GC-MS and a specialization in composite tool technologies and hafting materials. During her doctoral studies, Margaret held a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship as well as postgraduate research awards from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Taking time out from her studies, Margaret completed an internship in conservation science at the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) in 2016. Upon her return, she held research assistant and laboratory technician positions at the University of Oxford’s Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art.

From 2019 until 2021, she worked as a civil servant for the Government of the United Kingdom in portfolio and policy management positions at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She has authored and co-authored numerous publications in the analysis of organic archaeological materials, which focus on the collaborative application of analytical techniques to gain insight into how natural resources were used in the past to create objects for daily life.

Margaret joined CCI in 2021, specializing in the analysis of organic materials from heritage collections using GC-MS and pyrolysis GC-MS. Her current work focuses on archaeological materials and residues, natural binding media and pesticides.