The Department of Natural History at the Florida Museum, University of Florida, employs 28 faculty-curators and 22 collection managers who pursue great diverse scientific questions within anthropological, biological, and paleontological sciences.
Training the Next Generation of Scientists
The Department also houses a vibrant and diverse community of over 100 graduate students and 25 post-doctoral researchers. In any given year over 150 undergraduate students are trained in our collections and research labs. In the most recent fiscal year our faculty, associated staff, and students produced over 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications and taught 50 university courses.
Documenting Biodiversity and Cultural Heritage
Additionally, faculty-curators supervise the growth and maintenance of scientific collections containing more than 40 million of modern and fossil specimens of plants, animals, and archaeological and ethnographic materials – one of the largest such university-based resources in the world. Housed in the Florida Museum of Natural History (the official natural history museum of the state of Florida), these collections were initiated over a century ago and continue to grow rapidly. The collections house materials assembled from all over the world and are of inestimable value to understanding the history of life on earth.
Exceptional Productivity
The Department had an outstanding year with 27 faculty overseeing about $65 million in total external grant support for research and collection activities, including 36 new and 24 continuing grants totaling $8.3 million. This per-capita funding rate is high, even for a research-intensive university like the University of Florida.
Latest Research News
Florida monarch butterfly populations have dropped 80 percent since 2005
A 37-year survey of monarch populations in North Central Florida shows that caterpillars and butterflies have been declining since 1985 and have dropped by 80...
Forgotten for decades, rediscovered watercolor collection features hundreds of Florida plants
Botanist Mark Whitten was rummaging in an old drawer in the University of Florida Herbarium for tracing paper when he discovered something unexpected: hundreds...
New Earth systems institute to communicate environmental issues to Floridians
The University of Florida has launched the Thompson Institute for Earth Systems, an outreach-focused center that aims to advance public understanding of the...