Pratt Institute

Faculty Member, Math and Science

Professor of Chemistry

Pratt Institute

About

Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA

MS in Analytical Chemistry, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina

I am an  Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Mathematics and Science at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. At Pratt, I am involved in the development and teaching of Chemistry courses at the interface of Chemistry/Fine Arts and Art History.

I perform research in the field of Chemistry at the interface with Conservation Science, and NMR spectroscopy applied to Art Conservation and I am particularly interested in characterizing degradation processes of mural paintings, mosaics, archeological objects and traditional oil paintings by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. During the Spring 2007 I was on sabbatical leave studying how Mobile NMR can help assess the degradation state of artist's materials on site at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Department of Scientific Research and in collaboration with Alexej Jerschow’s group at NYU with our newly acquired Profiler NMR MOUSE. Funds to purchase the instrument were recently provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

More recently we received a grant by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus foundation to purchase portable instrumentation (handheld XRF, FTIR and Raman) to expand Pratt’s Mobile Laboratory for the studies of artists’ materials and artifacts.

Teaching

I teach Chemistry courses focused on introducing the chemical principles behind the artist’s techniques and materials. Presently I am reviewing the Chemistry for the Arts Curriculum at Pratt, further developing the courses below.

   
        Chemistry for Art Historians
       
        Chemistry of Roman Art and Architecture

        Art Forensics

        Chemistry of Wall Paintings

        Chemistry of Medieval Illuminations

        Chemistry of Ancient Mosaics

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