Harvard College graduate gets joint degrees in art and science
This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates. Many Harvard students have interests that bridge the seemingly disparate fields of art and science. Many fewer combine them in a joint concentration. Among those, Maille Radford ’17 has accomplished a first in Harvard history: earning joint degrees in chemistry and history of art and architecture. Radford already has experience in art conservation, a field that unites her two disciplines. In a senior-year internship in the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art Museums, she sampled and analyzed objects made from a variety of materials. Radford applied what she learned to her thesis on the evolution, use, reception, and degradation of plastics in modern art. “Being able to work in conservation for the first time, I’ve realized how my studies over the past four years may apply to studying art and artists’ materials,” Radford said....