Combining visual art and engineering

Dear Sherry,

Thanks for your question and for your interest in engineering for your daughter and your students.  Art does not have to be divorced from science and engineering.  My training is in materials science and engineering, and I have been involved in a ten-year partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago. Our focus is on conservation science or cultural heritage science, a multidisciplinary field that focuses on works of fine art, archaeological artifacts, and library and archival materials. Many of the conservation scientists with whom I work are trained in chemistry, materials science, or archeological science.  However, they hold positions in conservation departments of museums or other cultural institutions. Together we try to understand the materials used in these works to better comprehend them and preserve them, and hence, preserve our world's material culture. For example, we might use sophisticated scientific probes to identify a fading pigment. Once the pigment is characterized, that knowledge can be used to  produce a digital restoration of the painting in order to see what the work looked life at the time it was painted.  For more information about our work, read about the Northwestern University/Art Institute of Chicago Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts/ 

Best regards,

Katherine Faber