Congratulations to Astrid Brandt-Grau, Michael Duffy, Frances Lennard and Alison Richmond who have just been elected as Fellows of IIC. Profiles of two of the new Fellows are below; the others will be added in due course.

Astrid Brandt-Grau
Astrid Brandt studied art and archeology as well as science applied to the conservation of Cultural Heritage at the Sorbonne in Paris (Université de Paris I). In 1985 she graduated with a doctorate in archeology. This was followed by a stay at the French National Centre of Research (C.N.R.S.) where she worked for two years on different research projects related to paper and textile conservation. In 1987 she joined the French firm Microondes Energie Systèmes, which develops patents of the C.N.R.S. In 1990 she joined the Ministry of Culture as a research engineer. From 1990 to 1998 she worked at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, where she specialised in preventive conservation and project management of innovative conservation methods. From April 1998 to October 2002, she was the deputy head of the Research and Technology Mission (MRT) of the French Ministry of Culture. Since October 2002 she has been the Director of Studies of the Conservation Department at the National Institute for Cultural Heritage (INP). She has been involved twice in the coordination and teaching of ICCROM’s ‘Sharing Conservation Decision’ course. She works also as an expert for European projects and is an active ember of ICOM and IIC (where she is a board member of the French section SFIIC). Astrid has published many articles on conservation and restoration issues.

Alison Richmond
An American, educated in London and Rome, Alison first became aware of conservation while studying for a BA in Art History at the Courtauld Institute. After teaching for 10 years in adult education, she trained as a paper conservator at Camberwell College of Art, joining the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1990. In 1998, she took up the post of Tutor on the Royal College of Art/Victoria and Albert Museum Postgraduate Conservation Programme and was appointed Senior Tutor in 2003. She is a PACR accredited conservator, a Trustee of The Institute of Conservation, and an active member of the ICOM-CC Working Group: History and Theory of Conservation-Restoration. She has active research interests in ethics, decisionmaking and the history of conservation, and is currently co-editing (with Dr. Alison Bracker) a multi-authored book on the principles of conservation to be published by Elsevier in 2009. She has worked internationally to promote a practical approach to the ethics of conservation.

Chemists from the University of Florence have proposed a new way of cleaning paintings ’“ using ‘nanomagnetic sponges’. According to a paper published in the American Chemical Society’s interdisciplinary journal Langmuir in August, magnetised nanoparticles can be incorporated into a polyacrylamide gel which is then loaded with a microemulsion or other solution and can be used to clean paintings. These nanomagnetic sponges can be finely shaped to control how solutions are applied to the surface of an artwork and, unlike conventional solvent gels, can be removed completely with the aid of a permanent magnet, thus avoiding the need for the further application of solvents.