Maia wrote:
LOL. I guess some of you guys aren't in the 501st. I think some of what I do has been posted up on the main boards. I am a Professor in a regional college.
I started sewing when I was 4, made my first costume when I was 8. My grandmother was a seamstress and started teaching me when I was very small. She was a stern task master, too. Any wrong stitches would get ripped out and redone. I think my perfectionist streak comes from that.
My great uncle was an archaeologist as well as having a very prominent diplomatic career. When I was a kid, he always had some story to tell when visiting us. He used to go deep sea fishing with Hemingway. Anyway. As a teenager, I spent my summers on archaeological sites in central America. I don't much care for tarantulas, fire ants or other exotic bugs after those experiences. It did prompt me to go into archaeology as an academic career.
My first PhD is in archaeology, but the subject was more an archaeometric one than pure archaology in the strictest sense. My thesis involved the analysis of minerals in ancient Egyptian stone vessels with the purpose of determining where the rock came from. I had to develop the micro-analytical techniques myself. Similar methods can be used on other minerals, metals, etc, so I soon found myself in demand as an expert for authenticating artefacts. I have worked on collections in the Met, Boston MFA, British Museum, Ashmolean, FitzWillaim, etc. When the ROM became part of a three museum collaborative effort on an exhibit in 1998, I was asked to work on the clothing end of that given my background. Since then, other museums and a few private collectors have done the same.
I have also worked on sourcing geological materials (gold, diamonds, Lunar and Martian meteorites) but those projects are confidential, and some of the analytical techniques are proprietary.
Maia
Bloody hell, what are you doing hangin' around with a bunch of Star Wars nerds like us? You're WAY over-qualified
But seriously, it's great to have such expertise in our midst
Cheers,
Alan.