ASHMOLEAN MANAGEMENT
The Ashmolean is structured under 5 departments:
Find out more about the different departments and the people behind them below.
ASHMOLEAN DIRECTOR
Xa Sturgis
OPERATIONS
The Ashmolean Operations Department is the Front Line of the Museum. All our Visitor Experience Assistants who you see in our galleries are part of the Operations Department, along with Health, Safety and Security and our Museum Services.
Operations Director - Rachel Davies
Head of Finance - Karen Thorne
Head of Health, Safety and Security - Mike Finneran
Head of Visitor Experience - Emma Hermon
Head of Galleries, Projects and Facilities – Harry Phythian-Adams
COMMERCIAL
The Commercial Department operates a thriving retail, catering, publishing and venue hire business. In addition, the Department manages the Membership programme (Friends & Corporate), licensing portfolio, picture library and photography studio.
The Ashmolean commercial profit is invested back into the museum to support the annual operating costs, to enhance the collections and further the Museum's research.
Commercial Director - Shirley Jackson
Head of Events, Corporate Membership & Filming – Wendy Ball
Head of Publishing and Licensing - Declan McCarthy
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
The Public Engagement Department is responsible for our print and digital communications, press, design, our public events, our exhibitions teams and registrars as well as our educational programme and access.
Director of Public Engagement - Susan McCormack
Head of Learning - Jo Rice
Head of Design - Graeme Campbell
Senior Registrar and Head of Touring Exhibitions - Aisha Burtenshaw
DEVELOPMENT
The Development Department is responsible for acquiring funding to support the Museum and to help fund projects within the Museum.
Head of Development – Emily Magnuson
COLLECTIONS
The Ashmolean has 7 different departments: Antiquities, Eastern Art, Western Art, the Heberden Coin Room and Cast Gallery are all responsible for the administration, scholarship and curatorship of our objects. Conservation and University Engagement work with objects across the different departments to preserve (in the case of conservation) and engage the wider university in using object based learning in their taught courses and assessments.
Antiquities
The Department of Antiquities contains internationally renowned archaeological collections with particular strengths in Prehistoric Europe, the Ancient Near East, Ancient Egypt and Sudan, Minoan Aegean, Mycenaean and Classical Greece, Ancient Cyprus, the Roman world and Medieval and later Europe. We also hold the Museum's Founding Collection and historic archives.
Sackler Keeper of Antiquities - Dr Paul Roberts
Western Art
The Department of Western Art houses outstanding collections of European fine and decorative arts from the Renaissance to the present day. They include Old Master and later paintings, drawings, watercolours, and prints; English and continental ceramics, sculpture, silver, watches, rings, and musical instruments.
Keeper of Western Art - Professor Catherine Whistler
Eastern Art
The Department of Eastern Art is managed by geographic area with specialist curators for art from the Islamic world, India and Southeast Asia, China and Korea, and Japan. Promoting the collections as an educational resource is a key area of the Department’s activities; the curators teach and supervise students, provide special access to the collections for research purposes and publish their own research.
Keeper of Eastern Art - Dr Mallica Kumbera Landrus
Heberden Coin Room
The Heberden Coin Room is one of the leading international coin cabinets with particular strengths in the fields of Greek, Roman, Celtic, Byzantine, Medieval, Islamic and Chinese coinages. We also hold collections of paper money, tokens, jetons, and commemorative art medals.
Keeper of Heberden Coin Room - Professor Chris Howgego
Cast Gallery
The Ashmolean Cast Gallery is one of the oldest, largest, and best-preserved collections of casts of Greek and Roman sculpture in the UK, containing some 900 plaster casts of statues, reliefs, and architectural sculptures.
Keeper of the Cast Gallery - Professor Bert Smith
Conservation
The conservation department is responsible for the care and protection of Ashmolean objects. We have dedicated teams and techniques for the conservation of paper, textiles, objects and paintings. Each conservation project reveals a new side to an object. By using techniques like x-ray, radiography and RTI technology you get a 360 degree view of what lies beneath the surface of some of our most prized objects in our collections.
