Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa

Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa has been an active practitioner, educator, and consultant in the field of cultural record preservation for 40 years. She was associate director for preservation and conservation at the Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin for ten years, retiring in January 2026. Ellen was the founding director of the William and Margaret Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural Record, a position she held from 2004 to 2009 in the UT Austin School of Information. She served as president of the Association of North American Graduate Programs in Conservation from 2005 to 2009. Since 2010 she has been an affiliated assistant professor in the University of Delaware/Winterthur Program in Art Conservation. In 2016 Ellen was awarded the American Library Association’s Paul Banks and Carolyn Harris Award in Preservation for her contributions to educating conservation professionals. In 2022 she received the Publication Award from the American Institute for Conservation for her book Mooring a Field: Paul N. Banks and the Education of Library and Archives Conservators. She holds a PhD in American studies, a Masters of Library and Information Science, and an Endorsement of Specialization in Administration of Preservation Programs for Libraries and Archives.