Ella Jewell AndrewsConservation for archaeologyUniversity College London
Ella Andrews is an object conservator interested in archaeological conservation. Ella is currently pursuing an MSc in Conservation for Archaeology and Museums at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology. She received her BA in Anthropology from University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2019) and her MA in Principles of Conservation from University College London (2020). During her MA program at UCL, Ella worked in The Institute of Archaeology as a collections care assistant and helped build custom mounts for objects in collection storage. Her MA dissertation was about the impact climate change has on mud brick structures in Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. Ella’s background focuses on archaeological conservation, with a wide range of experience in inorganics conservation with a specific interest in ceramics. As an undergraduate, Ella worked as an assistant archaeologist on an 19th century plantation, Holly Bend, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
During the off season, she processed and conserved the excavated artifacts at The Schiele Museum of Natural History. Her senior honors thesis was the quantification of the ceramic assemblage of local, alkaline glazed ceramics from Holly Bend. She also held a position as a teaching assistant in the chemistry department of UNC Charlotte. Ella was involved in several surveying projects throughout her undergraduate which utilized GIS, GPS, aerial photography, and ground penetrating radar. These projects included a survey of a Civilian Conservation Corps Camp in Kings Mountain, North Carolina for a PBS (Public Broadcasting Center) docuseries and Michal-Butt-Brown-Pressly House in Lincolnton, North Carolina. In 2018, she worked as archaeological conservator in the field and lab for Mount Zion Excavation in Jerusalem. Her work in Jerusalem focused on the conservation of Iron Age ceramics from Suba Cave and freshly excavated material from Mount Zion. She was a Biblical Archaeology Society grant recipient, which funded her work at Mount Zion.
