Sandy Silver

Manager of Office Services, Administration

Photo: Dennis Keeley

Born to parents with a scientific bent (her father was a chemist, her mother a math teacher), Sandy Silver was raised in Torrance, California, and attended college at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After first studying speech pathology, she switched to communications and public speaking, graduating with a degree in communications studies. Following college, she worked at several different jobs in Los Angeles, including one in advertising and several at craft galleries. Later she was hired by the Armand Hammer Foundation to assist with the traveling exhibitions of the Hammer art collection. While there she did everything from public relations to installations to condition surveys of the art.

In 1988, after Mr. Hammer decided to build a permanent home for his collection, Ms. Silver went to work as Manager of Administration and Training in the internal audit department of Occidental Petroleum. Her goal remained working in an arts-related organization, and when she learned through a job recruiter of an opportunity at the GCI, she eagerly pursued it. In January 1992 she was hired as Manager of Office Services for the Institute.

A self-described "task-oriented" person, she likes using her organizational skills for the variety of duties her position entails, which include, among other things, supervising the operations of the GCI facility, overseeing interior remodels, and coordinating safety procedures. She has particularly enjoyed one of her primary responsibilities which is serving as project manager for the Institute's scheduled move in mid-1996 to the new Getty Center, presently under construction. Recalling from her childhood her father's complaints about poorly designed laboratories, she is particularly intent on seeing to it that the labs in the GCI's future home function well.

The variety of people and activities at the Institute are part of what she finds gratifying in her work. She especially appreciates being part of an organization where so many people are working in a field they love.

Dusan Stulik

Acting Director, Scientific Program

Photo: Dennis Keeley

From an early age, Dr. Dusan Stulik wanted both science and art to be part of his life. A native of Prague, he majored in chemistry at Charles University in Prague and studied painting and art history as well. After receiving a doctorate in physics from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, he searched for a job in conservation research, but found none. For seven years he worked in the Czechoslovak nuclear energy industry, lecturing part-time at Charles University, while continuing on his own to study art history and conservation. In 1980, believing he had reached the limits of his career as the result of his declining to join the Communist Party, he left on a business trip to Scandanavia and did not return (he was not reunited with his family until four years later).

Dr. Stulik came to the United States, where he taught chemistry, first at the University of Utah, then at Washington State University. In 1983 he wrote to the GCI expressing interest in working at the Institute; five years later, he was ultimately hired as Head of the Analytical Section of the Scientific Program. He later became Deputy Director of the Program and in 1992 was made Acting Director.

Since coming to the Institute, he has been involved in a number of research areas, including binding media, environmental research, environmental monitoring, and adobe consolidation. He has been particularly involved in the application of radiocarbon dating and elemental analysis for use in conservation, and he finds it extremely satisfying to be using his knowledge of science and industrial techniques in the preservation of art.

It is necessary, he believes, to have a passion for art if one is going to work in conservation. But art is not his sole passion. Every couple of months he indulges in another of his loves—skydiving.