Alison Gilchrest, director of Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, has been awarded the Forbes Medal by the American Institute for Conservation. The Forbes Medal is named for Edward Waldo Forbes (1873–1969), who directed the Fogg Museum at Harvard University from 1909 to 1944. In 1928, he founded what is now the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at Harvard.
Presented occasionally, the medal honors individuals whose work on a national or international platform has significantly advanced the preservation of cultural heritage. Only 11 individuals, including Gilchrest, have received the Forbes Medal since its inception in 1994. In honoring Gilchrest, the AIC celebrated her “collaborative, creative, insightful, and generous” work to forge collaborations, support worthy programs, and integrate the sciences and humanities.
Gilchrest joined the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage in January 2020 as its inaugural director of applied research and outreach. She was named director of the institute earlier this year. Before coming to Yale, she worked for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where for more than a decade she oversaw the largest private grantmaking program for cultural heritage in the United States.
Gilchrest received a bachelor’s degree in the history of art from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree in museum information systems from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.