Founded APOYOnline to link professionals in the Americas and Europe, as well as to share information on regional and international heritage preservation activities. She initiated projects with the Getty Conservation Institute, the International Institute for Conservation and the American Institute for Conservation to obtain traveling grants that allowed over 900 people from developing countries to attend international conservation events.
In 2004 she retired from her position as a Special Projects Officer at the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.. She has long reviewed and coordinated teams of translators working on technical publications from English to Spanish and vice-versa for several higher learning institutions in the USA, Canada and Latin America. In 2001 her efforts were recognized when she received the “Rutherford John Gettens Merit Award” for outstanding service to the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works and the field of heritage conservation.
Amparo has both a MS in Textile Science program (Conservation of Textiles) and an MA in Art History (Museum Studies) from the University of Missouri.
Representing country / countries: Colombia / U.S.
Became a member in: 1989
Beatriz Haspo has served as volunteer executive director of APOYOnline since 2004. She is also the Collections Officer of the Library of Congress Preservation Directorate, managing the preservation, access, security, and storage of over 27 million books in the Library’s collection, as well as multi-million-dollar contracts. Her expertise as a senior conservator extends to book, paper and painting conservation, as well as logistics, space management and emergency preparedness and response.
Beatriz Haspo is a member of several international cultural heritage preservation organizations, such as the American Institute for Conservation, where she has been an Editorial Board member since 2003 and Program coordinator of the FAIC Latin American and Caribbean Scholarly Program since 2006.
She has taught worldwide and has an adjunct faculty position at the University of Maryland School, where she is in charge of the Master in Library and Archives Preservation. Simultaneously, she is a Museology doctorate student at the Universidade Lusófona (Portugal) through the Catedra UNESCO for Education, Diversity and Citizenship scholarship. Beatriz has an M.A. in Art History and a B.A. in Simultaneous Translation in German, Spanish and Portuguese.
Representing country / countries:
Brazil / U.S.
Became a member in: 1996
Became Executive Director in: 2004
Francisco Vieira retired from the Inter-American Development Bank (Washington, D.C.) in 2013 and became a full-time international development consultant. He has a Master and a PhD in Public Administration from the University of Southern California (USC), an MBA from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and a bachelor in Engineering from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (Brazil).
Francisco was an instructor at USC and Visiting Instructor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and at the George Washington University School of Business and Public Administration. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Universidad Autonóma de Nuevo León (Mexico), and of the Latin America Leadership Program at Georgetown University.
Representing country / countries: Brazil / U.S.
Became a member in: 2008
Leah Bright is an objects conservator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, USA. She is particularly interested in organic materials, contemporary art, and preventive conservation. She was previously an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Objects Conservation at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
She graduated from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation in 2017, and completed graduate placements at the Arizona State Museum, the Prado Museum, and the Alaska State Museum.
Born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, Leah studied Art History and Spanish at the University of Oregon where she focused on the study of artistic responses to immigration policy along the US-Mexico border.
Representing country / countries: U.S.
Became a member in: 2017
Ruahidy Lombert has more than 20 years of conservation and restoration experience in public and private institutions. Since 2012 he has been the executive director of the Institute for Heritage Conservation and Research and the founder and president of Fundación Patrimonium. He also lectures at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD). Ruahidy is currently studying a Cultural Management program at Universidad Abierta Cataluña and is a PhD student at Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, where he previously obtained a Master in Science and Restoration of Historical and Artistic Heritage. He is a member of the International Conservation Institute (IIC), the International Council of Museums-ICOM-DO (Vice President) and APOYOnline’s Executive Committee.
Representing country / countries: Dominican Republic
Became a member in: 2020
Hilda Abreu de Utermohlen is a paintings conservator with more than 30 years of experience in the treatment of paintings and preventive conservation of collections. She worked in private practice in her native Dominican Republic, and in 2022 moved to Houston, Texas, where she continues to be involved in the preservation of cultural heritage through her collaboration with APOYOnline, and as conservation consultant. She received her MSc in paintings conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware
Program in Art Conservation (U.S.) She also has a BS in Chemistry, and Diploma in Studio Art. Hilda Abreu de Utermohlen has experience in teaching and training. She cocreated the first regional
graduate program in Museum Studies for Universidad UNPHU, Dominican Republic. She has published professional articles and is guest speaker on conservations issues. She is Board Member of APOYOnline,
and has served as Member of the Executive Board of ICOM. Finally, she is a Fellow member of AIC and IIC.
Representing country / countries: Dominican Republic| U.S.
Became a member in: 2023