Place of Work: Yale Peabody Museum (formerly formally, pre-pandemic) Areas of Study: Collections and Loans About: During my early undergrad years (2015 to 2017) I formally worked in the Peabody's Vertebrate Paleontology collection, doing cataloguing, reorganizing, inventory, and loan retrieval of fossils for the most part. I occasionally also helped visiting researchers complete projects, like finding fossils in the collections and preparing a working space, and my ongoing/pending work on theropod teeth (as seen in my picture). Upon returning to school in late 2019 I became a tour guide for th ..read more

Place of Work: Florida Museum of Natural History Areas of Study: Paleobiology, Marine Conservation About: Hello all! I currently work at Florida Museum of Natural History as a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Invertebrate Paleontology-- studying the field of Marine Conservation Paleobiology as of May 2021. And although I am currently working towards figuring out my thesis I am working on a few smaller studies until I figure out what I want to focus on. One most notably being possible changes in health and predation of Transennella mollusk species and their environment over time ..read more

What is STARS? The University of California, San Diego Summer Training Academy for Research Success (STARS) program is an eight-week summer research academy for community college students, undergraduate students, recent college graduates, and masters students. Open to all disciplines, STARS offers student participants a rigorous research opportunity with esteemed UC San Diego faculty, informative transfer and graduate school preparation workshops, and educational, cultural, and social activities in sunny San Diego. Students will: Gain hands-on research experience with a faculty mentor's resea ..read more

About Director of Education & Programs: This leadership position is part of a structure that aligns museum resources around visitor engagement and experience, and elevates Education within the institution overall. This position is responsible for developing and delivering nationally-innovative programs and content aligned with the needs of visitors, the public, schools and state curricula. The Director of Education is responsible for leading Education in the development of a suite of innovative, effective, and compelling programs and educational offerings that attracts, retains, and engage ..read more

Dr. Margaret Collins (1922-1996) was a termite expert and field biologist. Graduating high school at fourteen years old, she continued her education at West Virginia State, completing her bachelor’s degree in biology with minors in physics and German in 1943. Dr. Collins was the first Black woman to earn a PhD in entomology when she graduated from the University of Chicago in 1949. Until her death in 1996, Dr. Collins held a senior research position at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, where the collection of termite diversity of the Caribbean Islands and Guyana ..read more

Very little information exists about nature photographer and naturalist, Robert A. Gilbert. As is often the case with Black historical figures in the U.S., his contributions went largely unrecognized during his lifetime and are now virtually lost to history. Recently, however, brief descriptions of his life and his natural history work have been published by the Audubon and Biodiversity Heritage Library, largely based on the biography written by John Mitchell. Now, more than 2000 photos in the Massachusetts Audubon archives are suspected to have been captured by Gilbert. Robert Alexander Gilb ..read more

John Widgeon described himself as a “collector” for the Maryland Academy of Science, now the Maryland Science Center. Today he would likely be recognized as a collections manager or even curator given the magnitude of his contributions as a and the sole collector of specimens during his tenure. Widgeon procured a wide variety of aquatic and terrestrial species, from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. He also made collecting trips to the West Indies, where he learned to dive in order to collect corals in the region. Some of his collections were “discoveries new to science.” Jo ..read more

Graman Kwasi was a healer and collector with extensive botanical knowledge whose many accomplishments include descriptions of medicinal plants. He was recognized by his contemporaries for his deep understanding of plant properties and his talent for using them to cure ailments. Quassia amara was one plant that he described and used to treat intestinal parasites without any undesirable side effects. It was eventually named in his honor. Now of significant economic importance, Q. amara has been studied for its application as a natural remedy against several health problems including diabetes an ..read more

Inspired by the many Black-in- “X” weeks on Twitter, BlackInNHMs organized its first virtual event in October 2021. Given the colonial tendencies of natural history collecting and the commitment of many contemporary museums to decolonize their science and diversify their audiences and workforce, we strive to feature various institutions and professionals for this initiative. During this ,week, celebrated annually, we hope to inspire many Black professionals to reimagine their relationship with the biodiversity of our planet, while highlighting career opportunities in museums and related fields ..read more

The summer of 2022 , we held our first Community Conversation. Community conversations are a series of forums meant to serve as a venue for discussing specific difficulties faced by Black professionals in natural history museums and other academic institutions. During these discussions, we strategize ways to confront and mitigate these issues through self-advocacy, boundary setting. The first conversation in the series was Reclaiming My Time. We engaged in a moderated open-floor dialogue to air issues and triumphs related to balancing work and social obligations for Black people in Natural Hi ..read more