A native of New Jersey, Samantha attended Cornell University for her undergraduate studies earning a Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering. While at Cornell she spent her junior year abroad at Imperial College London where she became an active museum-goer, immersing herself in the many cultural offerings of the city. She went on to further explore the applications of materials science through her graduate research, undertaking a Ph.D. at the University of California San Diego (UCSD).

Samantha met Prof. Maurizio Seracini at UCSD and began to collaborate with the Center of Interdisciplinary Science in Art, Architecture, and Archaeology (CISA3).  She conducted the bulk of her thesis work in Florence, Italy, undertaking diagnostic projects at Palazzo Vecchio, the Florence Baptistery and Seracini’s Editech lab.  Samantha earned her Ph.D. in 2015 and has remained in Italy since then.

In 2016, she founded a consulting company Spectra Enterprises in 2016 with her husband, Antonio Artese, to develop multisensorial projects in music and the arts. In addition to coordinating activities for the C-GAP and managing logistics for the Summer Programs, Samantha regularly gives guest lectures in university courses about technical art history, cultural heritage diagnostics, and conservation science.