

Conservation at the Natural History Museum of denmark
Introducing the conservation team at the Natural History Museum of Denmark
The Team

Bethany Palumbo
Head of Conservation
Bethany is the Head of the Conservation Unit. She specializes in the conservation and restoration of taxidermy and osteological collections. Her main hobby is music and she loves seeing bands, playing guitar, and singing karaoke!

Mikkel Høegh Post
Conservator
Mikkel has been a conservator at the Natural History Museum of Denmark for 20 years, working in exhibition and collection management. He is now preparing specimens (mainly skeletons and skulls) for exhibitions. He specializes in macerating and preserving complicated fragile skeletal structures for scientific study. At home, he is an enthusiastic wildlife watcher and a keen hobby photographer, focusing particularly on birds and butterflies.

Zina Fihl
Conservator of Geological Collections
Zina studied at the Danish School of Conservation (Royal Academy of Fine Arts), specialising in the conservation of geological specimens. She has worked at different geological conservation centers in Denmark, preparing fossils and minerals, casting, developing exhibitions and undertaking field work. She also conserved and restored whale skeletons at the University Museum in Bergen, Norway. Returning to the field of geology as a collection manager here at the Natural History Museum of Denmark for the last 10 years she has received great experience in handling and preserving minerals, meteorites and hard rocks.

Abdi Hedayat
Conservator
Abdi has a Masters degree in natural history conservation from the Danish School of Conservation. He has worked full time in every corner of the museum since 2001, from collections and exhibitions, to fieldwork in the Arctic, East Africa and USA. Abdi has experience in preparing a variety of specimens, from pinned butterflies to beached whales. He has many years of experience in performing public dissections. Having three kids, Abdi has no spare time, but he loves music and books.

Nicole Feldman
Project Conservator
Nicole arrived to Copenhagen from New York City, where she has worked at American Museum of Natural History in science conservation for the past two years. She graduated from the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU in 2021, having earned two Masters degrees, a MS in the Conservation Historic and Artistic Works and a MA in the History of Art and Archaeology. In her free time, Nicole likes to hike with her 3 year old miniature Australian shepherd.

Anastasia van Gaver
Project Conservator
Anastasia studied in France and England and is specialised in organic materials conservation. She has a particular interest for ethnographic objects, wet specimens and taxidermy mounts, which she developed while working as a conservator at the British Museum, London, and the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. In her spare time, she enjoys bouldering and spending time with her cat.