Jim Druzik is a Senior Scientist (ret.) at the Getty Conservation Institute [GCI]. After taking a degree in chemistry from the University of Santa Clara, Druzik began his career in museum conservation working for preparators at the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art. However, Druzik applied his scientific training to the problems of museum conservation, developing connections with university research projects to answer questions about indoor air and light pollution. After working on early projects in digital imaging of art works, Druzik joined the Getty Conservation Institute in 1985 as an Associate Scientist, whose primary responsibility was to oversee six dozen scientific research contracts with external partners, while also participating as a scientist in many of those projects. Druzik was also an active participant in and shaper of the worldwide conservation science community, acting as Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Institute of Conservation from 2007 until 2015, leading external reviews of other conservation science programs and museums, co-chairing a half dozen symposia of the Materials Science Society on conservation science, including a prescient 1992 panel on the role of conservation science in conflict zones, and building research projects and partnerships at multiple universities and museums around the world. From the late 1990s, Druzik became a leading expert in new, efficient sources of museum lighting, and collaborated with the lighting industry, universities, the Department of Energy, and museums to bring safer and cheaper lighting sources to museum spaces around the world. A key theme explored in this oral history is the development of the institution of the GCI. Throughout this interview, Jim Druzik espouses an ethic of service to the museum and conservation science communities, which doubtless led to the wise allocation of the Getty Institute’s resources and its consequent place as a world leader in conservation science.