GILLIAN BROWNLEE JOINS VFP

Thanks to our funding from the Institute of Museum & Library Services (IMLS), the VFP has now hired a Graduate Assistant to function as Project Manager, Ms. Gillian Brownlee.

A native of South Louisiana, Gillian grew up reading the early 20th-century travel books of Richard Halliburton, writing letters to Dr. Bob Brier about mummies, and in general developing a life-long love of things ancient and historical. After graduating from Louisiana State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, she moved to Texas, where she had been spending summers working on evacuation and preservation at the archaeological site Lubbock Lake Landmark. She completed her Master's Degree in Museum Science, Geoscience, and Biology from Texas Tech University, with plans to continue to the doctoral level once she could narrow down her subjects of interest a little more. She took a brief breather working at St. Joseph Seminary College in Covington, La., as a Library Technical Assistant, and added a love of Library Science to her passion for the conservation of artifacts.

During a meeting this past summer, she discovered the possibility of a new doctoral program offered jointly by LSU’s College of Design and the School of Library & Information Science. This fall she began her doctoral studies in the Doctor of Design in Cultural Preservation program (with an emphasis in archival studies).