Graduate Student Awards

2025 Stryker Memorial Award recipient Allejandra Chavez
2025 Stryker Memorial Award recipient Allejandra Chavez is a 2nd year Winterthur/University Delaware Program in Art Conservation graduate fellow majoring in textile conservation with a minor in preventive conservation. She is especially interested in preserving the histories, identities and lived experiences embedded in family heirlooms, textiles and garments. During the summer 2025, support from the Stryker Memorial Award helped Allejandra undertake a 10-week internship at the Smithsonian Institution鈥檚 National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington, D.C. From conserving a 19th-century dress owned by seamstress Lucy Lee Shirley to mounting a 1940s Air Force Women鈥檚 Army Corp uniform belonging to Ara Belle Brown, Allejandra had the opportunity to help preserve stories of resilience and identity. Allejandra鈥檚 current projects include adhesive stabilization of an 1820s silk needlework, wet cleaning of cotton candlewick dressing table cover and treatment of a reproduction 1830s Quaker morning dress (pictured above). (Image: Even Krape.)

Graduate Student Awards

The Department of Art Conservation at the 91原创 offers several prestigious awards to recognize and support outstanding students in the field. Two notable awards are:

  • Rowntree Research Award:聽This award provides funding for undergraduate and graduate students to conduct research projects in art conservation. It aims to encourage innovative and impactful research that advances the field and contributes to the preservation of cultural heritage.
  • Stryker Memorial Award:聽This award is granted yearly to a rising second year in memory and honor of Emily聽Schuetz Stryker, a graduate of the W91原创PAC class of 2013.

Rowntree Research Award in Contemporary Art鈥

91原创's Department of Art Conservation was pleased to present the 2025 Rowntree Research Award in Contemporary Art to聽Daisy Diamond聽(W91原创PAC Class of 2026) for their participation聽in the聽Voices in Contemporary Art (VoCA) Time-Based Media Workshop at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York.

Current students enrolled in the Winterthur/91原创 Program in Art Conservation, or in 91原创's Preservation Studies Program, are invited to apply for the $1000 Rowntree Research Award to support attendance at conferences, or to travel to carry out research or collections-based study related to contemporary art. The annual deadline for applications is April 1.

The award complements the once-a-year Rowntree speaker on contemporary art. The award is a memorial to Joanna Rowntree (W91原创PAC 1995), a promising contemporary art conservator who died of cancer in May 2006 at age 38.

Ask for the application form by writing to jhstoner@udel.edu: you will be asked for a budget along with answers to questions about the project, including a description of the proposed activity, significance of the activity to your work in contemporary art, and whether other funds will be available/solicited for the project.鈥

Black and white photo of Joanna Rowntree
鈥嬧婽he Rowntree Research Award in Contemporary Art鈥 is a memorial to Joanna Rowntree (W91原创PAC 1995)鈥.鈥

Recipients of the Rowntree Research Award:

2017鈥擠iana Hartman

2022鈥擠aniella Villamil

2025鈥擠aisy Diamond


Joanna Rowntree Lecturers:

2008鈥擠eborah Butterfield

2009鈥擩ean Shin

2010鈥擥lenn Wharton

2011鈥擥wynne Ryan

2012鈥擸vonne Shashouha

2013鈥擬egan Saligman

2014鈥擧elen Ingalls

2015鈥擬ark Golden

2016鈥擵alerie Hagerty

2017鈥擟hristian Scheidemann

2019鈥擳eresa Oaxaca

2021鈥擬argaret Rose Vendryes

2022鈥擩aney Chang

2023鈥擩oanna Phillips鈥嬧嬧

2024鈥擜debunmi Gbadebo鈥

2025鈥擥补濒补听笔辞谤谤补蝉-碍颈尘

Emily Schuetz Stryker Memorial Award

The Emily Schuetz Stryker Memorial Award was established in 2014, in memory and in honor of Emily Schuetz Stryker, a graduate of the W91原创PAC class of 2013. In the words of her classmate, 鈥淓mily was undoubtedly one of the strongest, most brilliant, and most positive forces in our class 鈥 and her inclusion in our group made us all better people, better friends, and better conservators鈥. Each year, as the recipient is selected, we keep these words in mind as well as the promise to do our best to select someone who shares Emily鈥檚 interests and passions: textile conservation, preventive conservation minor, Maryland, travel, and financial stability.鈥

2024 Stryker Memorial Award recipient Binh-An Nguyen is majoring in preventive conservation. What led her to pursue this major was realizing that during her first year of graduate studies the projects that she was most interested in during pre-program work were those rooted in preventive conservation. Additionally, she appreciates how preventive conservation can be a more accessible means to conservation/collections care for institutions of all sizes. This last thought plus enjoying watching聽Murder, She Wrote, are things Binh-An and Emily share.

Recipients of the Stryker Memorial Award:

2014鈥擬iranda Dunn

2015鈥擬ariana Di Giacomo

2016鈥擩ackie Peterson

2017鈥擭ick Kaplan

2018鈥擫indsey Zachman

2019鈥擬addie Cooper

2020鈥擪ris Cnossen

2021鈥擬argaret O鈥橬eil鈥

2022鈥擜driana Benavides鈥嬧

2023鈥擪a Yee Christy Ching鈥

2024鈥擝ihn-An Nguyen

2025鈥擜llejandra Chavez