Sibylla Shekerdjiska-Benatova

Sibylla Shekerdjiska-Benatova came to the Rare Book and Manuscripts Department of Penn Libraries in 2000.

Sibylla holds an MA from the Sofia Film and Theater Academy, Bulgaria, and studied conservation at the Center for Slavic and Byzantine Studies "Prof. Ivan Duychev", Sofia University.

Her specialties are Asian papers and their historic production. Traditional and modern methods of their application guide Sibylla's ongoing conservation research. Sibylla has traveled across Thailand and Japan to study historic techniques of producing mulberry paper. In her role as a Senior Conservation Technician for Paper at the Steven Miller Conservation Laboratory, Sibylla works on paper objects.

In addition to her professional interests in hand-made natural-fiber papers and their use in conservation, Sibylla is a student at Penn's GSE, pursuing her second Master's degree in education. Her research focuses on children’s literature, early development, immigrant students and literacy, and illustrated texts.