The project team is interdisciplinary, according to the approached topic, located at the intersection of various research fields (entangled history, colonial history, history of technology, social history, economic history, cultural studies, history of mentality, museum studies).
Ana-Maria Gruia PhD.
Project leader
Ana-Maria Gruia is a historian and museographer specialized in the research and promotion of cultural patrimony related to the history of pharmacy. She has also coordinated academic research projects before. She has shown an interest in various fields of study, such as medieval iconography, depictions on decorative arts (stove tiles), tobacco pipes and the history of smoking, the history of pharmacy, and museum studies. Ana-Maria Gruia is project leader, responsible for the management of the project, the coordination of networking activities and the attraction of collaborators. She is also employed as scientific researcher, with specific research tasks in the field of pharmacy history, visiting museum pharmacies, partially writing the catalogue of the project and academic papers, taking part in conferences, writing the intermediate and final reports and promoting the project and its results.
Mária Pakucs PhD.
Academic researcher
Mária Pakucs is an experienced researcher specialized in the economic history, the history of trade, and urban history during the Early Modern Period. She has worked intensively with significant written sources from Transylvania. Part of the present project, she will transcribe and translate in English the 16th-18th-century manuscripts in the collection and handwritten marginal notes preserved on the pages of the old books. She will partially write the scientific catalogue and specialized papers. She will take part in conferences and will promote the project and its results.
Ioana Monica Gruiță PhD.
Academic researcher
Ioana Monica Gruiță is an experienced historian and museographer, specialized in art history, modern and contemporary art, museum studies and curating. Part of the present project she is employed as academic researcher and focuses on the lot of old books in the collection. She will catalogue all such books and transcribe/translate manuscripts dated to the 19-20th centuries. She will also visit history of pharmacy museums, will partially write the final catalogue of the collection, will take part in conferences and will contribute to the promotion of the project and its results.
Ioana Cova, doctoral candidate
Conservator
Ioana Cova is an experienced conservator, specialized in the conservation and restoration of textile goods and the manipulation of patrimony goods. She is currently enrolled in a doctoral program at the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, working on a dissertation connected to the preservation of archaeological goods in Romanian museums. Part of the present project she will manipulate all items for photography and research, will perform the preventive conservation of certain goods, will coordinate the cleaning and restoration of ca. 500 artifacts by members of the Conservation and Restoration Laboratory of the National History Museum of Transylvania that she is currently leading. She will also visit history of pharmacy museums, will create conservation files of the artifacts with data to be included in the final catalogue. She will take part in conferences and will contribute to the promotion of the project and its results.
Alexandru Rădulescu PhD.
Academic researcher
Alexandru Rădulescu teaches photography at the Art and Design University in Cluj-Napoca and has been previously involved in projects focusing on the digitalization and promotion of mobile cultural patrimony (such as the Ecultura project). In the framework of the current project, Alexandru Rădulescu is employed as academic researcher, responsible with photographing the entire collection (ca. 2500 items, ca. 20.000 photographs), the digital processing of these images for publication. He will also create photographic and video materials for the promotion of the project.
Contributors:
Ágnes Găzdac-Alföldy PhD, coin expert and keeper of coins at the MNIT, has contributed with a study on the coin hoard recently discovered in the basement of the Hintz House and Pharmacy, in the introductory volume.
Márta Guttmann PhD is a chemist and expert conservator, lecturer at the University of Sibiu. She has contributed to the collection of materia medica samples for analysis and has contributed to the interpretation of the results in published works (see Results). She is also co-authors of a introductory study in the first volume of the catalog.
Oana Habor PhD, museographer with the Museum of the Medical School in Cluj of the ”Iuliu Hațieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, is the author of a study focusing on pharmaceutical education in the city (in the introductory volume of the catalog).
Melinda Mitu PhD, historian working for the MNIT, specialist in the modern period, has contributed with a study focusing on the biography of pharmacist Hintz György to the introductory volume of the catalog.
Magó Andrea Beatrix PhD, chemistry researcher with the MNIT, has taken micro-photographs and has performed material determinations of some of the artifacts in the collection, has contributed to the collection of materia medica samples, has authored the abstracts of the results of these investigations and analyses for the catalog, and has contributed to their interpretation in published works (see Results). She is also co-author of a introductory study in the first volume of the catalog and contributor to the seventh volume.
Robert Offner MD from Regensburg has also accepted to become a collaborator of the project, preparing a text on Tobias Maucksch, the first privileged pharmacist of Cluj, also for the introductory volume of the catalog.
Radu Cordoș, engineer, expert restorer of metal items, member of the restoration laboratory of the MNIT, has conserved and restored several history of pharmacy artifacts that are made of metal.
Cornelia Rotariu, expert in the restoration of ceramic cultural goods with the restoration laboratory of the MNIT, has contributed with the cleaning, conservation and restoration of pharmaceutical artifacts from recent archaeological excavations and from the old museum collections.
Tudor Tomescu, expert restorer of artifacts made of ceramic, glass, faience, and porcelain, also from the restoration laboratory of the MNIT, has focused on the conservation and restoration of pottery drug jars and laboratory glass items in the collection.