After obtaining her degree in Painting from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, Catherine Rivière completed her training at the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro in Rome, specialising in the Conservation and Restoration of Paintings and in the Conservation and Restoration of Stone Materials. Her academic background was further enriched by a Master's degree in General and Museum Education from the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, and by studies in New Media and Museum Communication as part of a Master's course in Museology at the IULM University of Milan.

Following an initial professional career focused primarily on the conservation of mural paintings, paintings on canvas, and wooden sculptures, in 2001 she joined the working group — now known as the Ethnological Materials Conservation Laboratory — engaged in the conservation of the Vatican collections at the Museo Anima Mundi. In this context, she has engaged with the complex challenges of conserving and restoring non-European cultural heritage objects from Asia, the Americas, Oceania, and Africa.

Together with the Laboratory team, she is particularly involved in the organisation and arrangement of storage facilities, and in the study of intervention methodologies for the conservation of collections characterised by a wide variety of materials and techniques.

She participates in the development of research programmes grounded in interdisciplinary dialogue and the sharing of environmentally sustainable conservation and restoration practices. Furthermore, in the context of evolving conservation practice, she promotes the reconnection with the source communities of the artefacts held in the collections.

In order to deepen her knowledge of the materials present in the Vatican ethnological collection, she has taken part in numerous international workshops and conferences, with particular attention to studies and methodologies for the conservation of East Asian lacquerware.

Since 2023, she has served as Head of the Ethnological Materials Conservation Laboratory.