Jill Plitnikas

Conservator (Objects), Treatment and Collection Care – Objects, Paper and Archaeology Division

Main areas of work and/or specializations

• treatment of objects, specializing in organics
• delivery of “Care of Objects in Indigenous Cultural Centres” workshop
• supervision of interns

Biography

Jill Plitnikas earned a B.A. in Archaeology at the University of Toronto and a Master of Art Conservation (Artifacts) at Queen’s University. She is accredited under the Institute of Conservation’s Professional Accreditation of Conservator-Restorers process, for which she also assessed candidates from 2007 to 2016.

After graduating from Queen’s University in 1999, Jill completed an internship in archaeological and ethnographic conservation at the Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen. In 2001, she did a postgraduate fellowship in archaeological conservation at the Museum Conservation Institute (Smithsonian). The following year, she did another fellowship in textile conservation at the Textile Conservation Center in Massachusetts. From 2003 to 2004, she was a conservator at the Field Museum, where she led a project on the conservation and care of the North American Indigenous collections.

Jill returned to the United Kingdom in 2005 to work as an antiquities conservator at Bristol Museums. In 2007, she became an artifact conservator at National Museums Scotland, where she conserved objects from the world cultures, art and design, and Scottish history and archaeology collections for almost a decade. In 2017, she joined the Canadian Conservation Institute.