About

I am a conservator of archaeological materials, and a writer, researcher and teacher dedicated to following the stories of the people of the past.

As of early April 2024, I am the Director of the Museum Conservation Institute of the Smithsonian Institution. Prior to this appointment, I was Director of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum and Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. I retain a position as Associate Research Scholar at Johns Hopkins University.

I received my PhD in the interdisciplinary program in Preservation Studies at the University of Delaware. My research focuses on uncovering the diverse identities of the immigrants, migrants, women entrepreneurs and enslaved peoples who were among the potters and painters producing ceramics in ancient Athens in the 6th to 4th centuries BCE.  Here’s a brief description of the project. My doctoral dissertation was awarded the Wilbur Owen Sypherd Prize for the 2024 Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in the Humanities.

I am the founder and director of Untold Stories, a non-profit organization that centered Black, Indigenous and People of color (BIPOC) voices working in the preservation of cultural heritage. Having achieved its aims to begin conversations around these issues, Untold Stories is no longer active as of March 2024.

I am the recipient of the American Institute for Conservation’s Rutherford John Gettens Award (2021), Supervisor of the Year at Johns Hopkins University (2021), and Bard Graduate Center’s Iris Outstanding Mid-Career Scholar award (2020). I was James Marsden Fitch Resident in Historic Preservation and Conservation at the American Academy in Rome in the summer of 2023, Conservation Guest Scholar at the Getty Conservation Institute (2017) and a Fulbright Awardee to India (2009-2010).

Some of the academic projects I’m most proud of include experimental archaeological work attempting to recreate ancient Athenian pots in collaboration with potter Matthew Hyleck (see our short film “Mysteries of the Kylix” from 2015) and my ongoing research “Excavating the history of the Archaeological Museum” as part of the “Racism and Repair in the Academy” project at Johns Hopkins.

I love communicating my work to a range of audiences. I’m super proud of appearing on the award winning science podcast for kids, Brains On! (1 million downloads a month, woah!), and sharing with kids about why I don’t think we should display mummified people in museums for Scholastic Magazine (6 million readers, double woah!).

I am currently thinking about pitching a memoir about how finding out that both of my grandfathers were involved in conservation makes me consider my own commitments to the conservation field, the long legacies of colonialism and racism in our work, and how we think more critically about our contemporary preservation practices. I explored some of these questions in this article and this brief article.

cv and linkedin

A current cv is available here. My LinkedIn profile is here.

contact

sanchita@gmail.com

land acknowledgement

My own land acknowledgement statement is a work in progress as I try to listen to and learn from Native and Indigenous peoples. As a settler on this land who is also a museum worker, my own commitment is to ensure that ancestral remains and ancestral items can be cared for and returned as desired by their own peoples.

Scholars Elisa Sobo, Michael C. Lambert and Valerie L. Lambert have drawn attention to the ways that land acknowledgements “relegate Indigenous peoples to a mythic past and fail to acknowledge that they owned the land”; how “plans are never articulated to give the land back”; deny the past and ongoing trauma of Indigenous peoples, and undermine Indigenous sovereignty. They state, “land acknowledgments are not harmful, we believe, if they are done in a way that is respectful of the Indigenous nations who claim the land, accurately tell the story of how the land passed from Indigenous to non-Indigenous control, and chart a path forward for redressing the harm inflicted through the process of land dispossession.”

I am grateful to Peggy Mainor of the Multicultural Initiative for Community Advancement (MICA) Group for generously crafting the following statement and bringing awareness to the long histories, ongoing presence, and futures of Indigenous peoples in this place now called Baltimore:

The history of the Native people of the Upper Chesapeake Bay dates back 12,000 years. Baltimore stands on the traditional lands of the Susquehannock people, who lived in this region until 1652 when they were forced by the Maryland colonial government to cede their homeland and resettle at a fort on the banks of the Potomac River. In 1675, they were forced north to Conestoga, Pennsylvania by militia forces. There, the remaining members of the Susquehannock people were killed by the “Paxton Mob” in 1763. Although the Susquehannock Tribe no longer exists, we acknowledge their ongoing presence here. We also acknowledge that this place is one of gathering and stewardship of many Native peoples including the Piscataway and Accohannock Tribes, the Nanticokes of the Eastern Shore, and vibrant communities of Lumbees and Cherokees, who migrated to Maryland from North Carolina.

what’s with the shoe/flower images?

What’s more joyful than metallic shoes and spring flower petals? These images remind me of the regular unfolding of magic on the earth even when that feels impossible and the gratitude I have for the opportunity to walk these paths.