Professor Emerita and founding faculty of the UCLA/Getty Conservation Program, Los Angeles, USA.

Expert in Indigenous collections and featherwork conservation, and Founding Director of the Andrew W. Mellon Opportunity for Diversity in Conservation.

Ellen Pearlstein is professor emerita and was a founding faculty member in the graduate UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, where she incorporated Indigenous instruction to help students understand the production and care of California basketry and featherwork. Her publications include the book Conservation of Featherwork from Central and South America, and articles about feather regalia, coloration, light aging, Peruvian keros and their colorants, Indigenous basketry materials, and conservation pedagogy. She was a core contributor to the Guidelines for Collaboration developed by the School for Advanced Research, in Santa Fe. She guestlectures globally. Pearlstein is the Founding Director of the Andrew W. Mellon Opportunity for Diversity in Conservation. She is a winner of the Keck Award, and a 2022 recipient of a Rome Prize for the study of collaborative conservation approaches to collections from the Americas in European museums. Her forthcoming articles will appear in the Routledge volume on care and conservation of plant materials, and the UCL volume on conservation pedagogy. Her volume in the Getty Readings in Conservation series, entitled Conservation and Stewardship of Indigenous Collections: Changes and Transformations, is due out in 2026.