Kjersti Marie Ellewsen is Head of the conservation department and has worked at NIKU since September 2020.

Kjersti has a degree in object conservation from the University of Oslo, with archaeology and social anthropology as part of her degree. She has worked as an archaeological conservator at the Museum of Cultural History, where she worked with artefacts from the medieval towns of Oslo and Tønsberg. She also worked for a period as responsible for the museum’s external storage facility.

From 2011 she worked for the Directorate for Cultural Heritage as a consultant on building protection in large and small restoration projects, primarily on churches. There she was particularly involved in consulting on heating and indoor climate, traditional paint materials and conservation of church art. She has been engaged in emergency planning work since 2008 and was leader of FORK (Forum for Emergency Preparedness and Salvage of Art and Cultural Heritage) from 2014-2020.

Kjersti delivered her master’s degree in 2019 which dealt with salt damage in wood based on Urnes stave church.