John Habib

Stream: Treatment
Specialization: Paper
Areas of interest: Illuminated manuscripts, works on parchment, egg tempera, bookbinding and the history and technology of papermaking in the Middle East.

John Habib graduated from Queen’s University in 2022 with a B.Sc. (honours) in chemistry. His undergraduate thesis focused on genomic mining for thermophilic enzymes that can degrade polyethylene terephthalate, a common polluting plastic. He interned at the St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society where he worked on transcribing the texts of medieval Coptic manuscripts and attended a course on the Coptic language. John also held the position of collections assistant at Bradley Museum in Mississauga, Ontario, where he completed inventory, rehoused artifacts, wrote condition reports and visually documented a variety of objects including books, posters, textiles, figurines, and historic farming equipment. He was also responsible for preventive conservation measures such as monitoring the temperature and relative humidity in the storage areas.