Meghan Schindler ’08 credits St. Lawrence with giving her the skills and the experience to succeed in the world of art conservation. As the Mellon Intern for Modern Materials in the Conservation Department at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., she works on a collection of over 18,000 pieces of art materials from over 100 manufacturers. “I have worked with some of the world’s best conservators,” she says. “My main work includes historical research on art materials, as well as art material manufacturers; cataloging/photographing/conserving art materials; and creating usable samples from different types of paint for future research.” She has researched and created a database on over 300 historical pigments.

In college, the history and fine arts double major was manager of both the field hockey and softball teams and a member of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, the Art and Art History honor society and SLU Buddies, which works with at-risk area school children.  She was a Art and Art History teaching assistant (TA) and studied on St. Lawrence’s semester program in London, England.  “I was able to see art that I had been studying,” she recalls.  She also had an internship at The October Gallery, which shows art from Asia and Africa and by indigenous peoples from Australia and the Americas. 

“SLU gave me the opportunity to take classes that I was interested in, go abroad, meet amazing fellow students, and have professors who challenged me to do more than I thought I was capable of, “she says. “I studied history, art, religion and literature. My internship in London gave me insight into how a gallery is run. My professors conveyed the tools to do research, and gave me the emotional and academic support to succeed.”