The Kelsey Museum enthusiastically welcomes Katherine Burge and Kathryn Peneyra for the 2024–2025 academic year. As a postdoctoral fellow for the History of Art Department, Katherine Burge will assist with the installation of the Kelsey Museum’s new permanent gallery, “Crossroads of Culture, 400–1800.” Kathryn Peneyra is a visiting student from the UCLA/Getty Conservation of Cultural Heritage MA program who joins the Kelsey as a fellow in the Conservation Department. 

Katherine Burge is an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Middle East and eastern Mediterranean. She received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also served as a curatorial research associate at the Penn Museum. Her research focuses on urban societies, socioeconomic organization, and information recording in Bronze and Iron Age Mesopotamia and employs an interdisciplinary approach—integrating material, visual, and textual data. Katherine has excavated at a number of sites in Turkey, Kurdistan, and Iraq. She is also interested in the more recent histories of colonialism and internationalism in Middle Eastern archaeology, museums, and cultural heritage policy. 

Kathryn Peneyra grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and studied chemistry during her undergraduate degree at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she developed a great fondness for Midwestern winters. Her advisor at Carleton introduced her to the field of conservation, and her love for site-based work steered her in the direction of archaeological conservation. Kathryn has had the opportunity to work on freshly excavated finds last summer at Kaman-Kalehӧyük in Türkiye as well as this summer in the Native village of Quinhagak. While at the Kelsey Museum, she is excited to work on a diverse collection of archaeological materials in a museum setting, experiment with research projects, and experience more site-based conservation. Broadly, Kathryn’s goals in conservation are to take holistic approaches to her work while prioritizing community engagement and cultivating community relationships.