Rebekah Parkinson recently returned to the field of conservation after a career break. Originally she studied Conservation and Restoration at the University of Lincoln, before working for private conservation companies on projects including the recent major restoration programme at St Paul's Cathedral, London, and Stowe House, Buckinghamshire. From 2005 to 2008 she worked with the public collection at the Guildhall Art Gallery, London before relocating to Yorkshire.
On returning to heritage and museum field in 2010 she was a project conservator at Whitby Museum, North Yorkshire managing a branch of the Muster Rolls paper conservation project led by North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) at their Northallerton Archives. This involved supervising a group of volunteers in the conservation of 18th- and 19th-century merchant navy shipping documents.
In the autumn of 2011 Rebekah returned to academia at the University of York to study MA in Cultural Heritage Management, focusing her dissertation on the therapeutic value of heritage, participation and communities. During her studies she completed placements for NYCC and York Army Museum, mainly updating documentation of archaeological sites and public collections.
Having only started in post in May 2013 Rebekah is currently considering specific project possibilities to undertake while with University of Cambridge Museums (UCM), though she has already contributed to object condition checking for upcoming exhibitions and loan preparation.
She has interests in preventative conservation, collection/heritage management and functional, sustainable community participation projects.