Natural History Museums
In addition to evolutionary functional morphology I have a great interest in
natural history collections and their renewed relevance to science. The existence
of tools such as Global Information Systems, refined molecular techniques, complex
phylogenetic analyses incorporating molecular and morphological data and high
demands on environmental conservation promise to keep natural history collections
an important scientific resource. I was involved in the NSF-funded project
HerpNET, which created a distributed database that combined the collection
databases of 36 natural history museums from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Such
projects increase the value of each collection and provide incentive for the
expansion and curation of small regional museums. In particular, I would like
to see a natural history collection with both research and public components
be formed in my home country, Cyprus. To this end I am working with museum curators
and faculty at the University of California at Berkeley Museum of Vertebrate
Zoology (MVZ) and officials from the Cypriot government. We hope to initiate
an interest in such a project by the government and by private enthusiasts.
