[NHCOLL-L:4817] The 2010 SPNHC Rose Award

[Watkins-Colwell, Gregory]

R. Robert Waller to receive SPNHC Rose Award

 

New Haven, CT.  The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections has chosen R. Robert (Rob) Waller as the 2010 recipient of the Carolyn Rose Award, the Society’s highest honor. The Rose Award recognizes significant contributions to the objectives of the Society and is often given as a lifetime achievement award.  While Waller has not reached the end of his professional career, he is recognized by colleagues for “achieving in one career what would take most others several lifetimes.” Until recently starting his own company (Protect Heritage Corporation), Waller had been with the Canadian Museum of Nature since 1975 where he started as conservator of its Mineral Sciences Division. He was named conservation chief in 1996. As a member of the museum’s collection care team, he received the 2003 American Institute for Conservation of Heritage Preservation Award for “Outstanding Commitment to the Preservation and Care of Collections.”

 

Nominations for the Rose Award cite Waller for pioneering advances in the field of collection management and conservation worldwide far beyond the field of natural history. An Ottawa resident, he received his B.S. in computer science, with a minor in geology, from the University of Manitoba in 1976. His doctoral thesis from Goteborg University in 2003, Cultural Property Risk Analysis Model, was considered groundbreaking and has since changed the way museum collection professionals plan strategically and set priorities. Conservator Catharine Hawks noted in her recommendation that Waller “has steadily improved the way we address our public trust responsibilities by developing a means to demonstrate accountability and estimate the preservation potential of our actions.” Chris Norris, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, added, “Geological conservators, collection managers and curators are putting into practice techniques for the preventive conservation of collections that they learned from courses organized by Rob over 20 years ago.”

 

The Rose Award will be presented on June 4 at the Society’s 25th anniversary meeting in Ottawa.  The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (www.spnhc.org) is an international organization devoted to the preservation, conservation and management of natural history collections.

 

 

Tim White, Past-President

Chair, Recognitions & Grants Committee

Society for the Preservtion of Natural History Collections

 

Assistant Director for Collections & Operations

Peabody Museum of Natural History

Yale University

170 Whitney Avenue, PO Box 208118

New Haven, CT 06520-8118 USA

 

(203) 432-3767 (voice)

(203) 432-3758 (fax)

tim.white at yale.edu


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Gregory J. Watkins-Colwell
Division of Vertebrate Zoology
Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History
170 Whitney Avenue, Box 208118
New Haven, CT  06520