Speakers: Corine Wegener

About

Corine Wegener is director of the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI), an outreach program dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage in crisis situations in the U.S. and abroad. SCRI’s work has included projects in Haiti, Mali, Nepal, Iraq, Syria, and most recently Ukraine. Wegener has more than 20 years of experience as an art historian, curator, and emergency responder for cultural heritage in crisis. In a concurrent 20-year U.S. Army Reserve career, she served as a Civil Affairs Arts, Monuments, and Archives Officer. As founding past president of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, Wegener helped lead the successful campaign for the 2009 U.S. ratification of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Her research interests include the role of cultural heritage in armed conflict narratives, forensic documentation of cultural heritage damage, and improving integration of cultural heritage into international disaster risk management frameworks. Wegener is an honorary professor at the University of Glasgow College of Arts. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Nebraska Omaha and MA degrees in Political Science and Art History from the University of Kansas.