A MESSAGE
from the Director of the Auburn University Museum of Natural History
Jason Bond
This past year proved to be very exciting and
productive for the Auburn University Museum
of Natural History. Most notably, it marks the
completion of the first year in which AUMNH
and the Alabama Natural Heritage Program
have joined forces. The museum’s staff has now
grown from four collections managers to two,
newly appointed research assistant professors,
Drs. Brian Helms and David Steen; three fulltime
collections managers, David Laurencio, David
Werneke, and Curtis Hansen; a zoologist, Jim
Godwin; a botanist, Al Schotz; a database manager,
Michael Barbour; and an outreach coordinator,
Kay Stone. Additionally, Jennifer Weber, a former
Department of Biological Sciences undergraduate
student, has joined the team temporarily this
spring and summer to assist with collections and
database management. We also added another
curator to the ranks with the appointment of
Professor Ken Halanych of the Department of
Biological Sciences, who is the curator of Marine
Invertebrates. The merger of AUMNH with the
Alabama Natural Heritage Program has proven to
be a tremendous boon to the research, education,
and outreach missions of the museum, and we
expect continued growth as we move forward.
Although it is probably now time to revisit the
museum’s strategic plan, it is worth noting that we
have made significant strides meeting our objectives
over the past few years, particularly with respect
to infrastructure, collections growth, digitization,
and education and outreach. The curators, staff, and
students have settled nicely into the Biodiversity
Learning Center, however, projected collections
growth in coming years will quickly outpace the
space available. We have made significant strides
in terms of the museum’s database collections
with the move to the Specify platform. Improving
our database was further facilitated by National
Science Foundation funding via two Thematic
Collections Network grants for the Herbarium and
Invertebrates collections through the Expanding
Frontiers Program and totaling nearly hal