Virginia (Ginny) Greene, G’68, a former senior conservator and director of the conservation lab at the Penn Museum, died on January 23. She was 82.

Born in Brooklyn, Ms. Greene received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College, then came to Penn’s department of archaeology to earn her master of arts in 1968. While at Penn, Ms. Greene joined the Penn Museum’s staff as a secretary, and in 1967, became a conservator at the museum. She soon became involved in the museum’s Tikal Project, a long-running archaeological study of a Mayan city in the Guatemalan rainforest that was the largest excavation project in the world up to that point. From 1969 to 1971, she studied at the UCL Institute of Archaeology in London, and after graduating, returned to the Penn Museum to head its recently-established conservation lab. Under Ms. Greene’s leadership, the lab became a world-renowned resource for conservation practice and training; many of Ms. Greene’s interns have since gone on to become leaders in the field.

As director of the lab, Ms. Greene managed the transformation of its collection storerooms from disorganized spaces scattered throughout the Penn Museum building to state-of-the-art facilities. Over her long career, Ms. Greene (called “Conservator Extraordinaire” by the museum’s Expedition Magazine) lectured, presented technical papers, served as an advisor and consultant, and taught a course on conservation at the University of Delaware. In 2001, she received the American Institute for Conservation’s Sheldon and Caroline Keck Award for excellence in the education and training of conservation professionals. After retiring from the Penn Museum in 2008, Ms. Greene continued to work on her monograph, The Pottery Figurines of Tikal, which was published in 2024.

Ms. Greene is survived by her brother, Al Greene, and her nephews, Russell Greene and Jason Greene. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in Ms. Greene’s memory may be made to the Rabbi Ezekiel Nissim Musleah Torah Fund of Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at https://templebethzionbethisrael.shulcloud.com/form/tributes-and-memorials-donation.html.