Thea Burns

Dorothea ("Thea") Burns is an independent art researcher and former chief conservator of works on paper at the Weissman Preservation Center of Harvard University.

She earned her PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.

[1] Burns joined Queen's University in 1989 where she directed the paper objects component of the master's degree program in art conservation and was a tenured associate professor of paper objects conservation.

[1] In January 2002, Burns was appointed the first Helen H. Glaser Conservator at the Weissman Preservation Center of Harvard University in which capacity she was the senior paper conservator at the Harvard College Library.

[1][2] Her first book, The invention of pastel painting (2007) was described by reviewer Rosie Freemantle in Journal of the Institute of Conservation as an exceptional work that "covers the topic with an amount of detail unseen in previous works on the subject".