Eric Breitung, Research Scientist, specializes in modern preservation materials and museum environment issues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Scientific Research. After receiving a PhD in physical organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he worked in the Polymer Materials Laboratory at General Electric’s Research and Development Center during which he spent one year as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He then worked on textile dye analysis at the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and continued as senior scientist at the Library of Congress where he focused on modern materials and development of materials analysis tools.