Kathleen Dardes is the former Head of Collections at the Getty Conservation Institute, where she worked from 1988 until early 2020. She began her career at the GCI in the Training Program, then moving on to Field Projects, before becoming Head of Education and, finally, Head of Collections. She studied textile conservation in the Textile Conservation Centre/ Courtauld Institute of Art post-graduate program, receiving her diploma from the University of London. Prior to her arrival at the Getty, she worked as a textile conservator the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.