Biography
Dr. Catherine Schmidt Patterson
AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow
Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Division of Social and Economic Sciences
Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure
Class of 2022–2023
Dr. Catherine Schmidt Patterson is a scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, California, where she is a member of the Technical Studies research group. Her primary research uses non- or minimally-invasive analytical techniques such as Raman microspectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and technical imaging to study works of art, using science to enhance narratives conservators and curators craft regarding the works in their care. Patterson is also invested in the development of new analytical methodologies, technology transfer for the benefit of cultural heritage science, program monitoring and evaluation, and policy development for the heritage science field. Before joining the Getty Conservation Institute as a staff member in 2009, Patterson held the institute's prestigious Postdoctoral Fellowship in Conservation Science from 2007 to 2009. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry at Northwestern University in 2007, where her research focused on environmental physical chemistry, specifically the chemistry governing the interaction of indoor air pollutants with catalytic surfaces.