The Department of Natural History at the Florida Museum, University of Florida, employs 32 faculty-curators and and more than 30 collection managers and other professional staff who pursue a variety of scientific questions within the anthropological, biological, and paleontological sciences.
Training the Next Generation of Scientists
Each year, the Department houses a vibrant and diverse community of 80–100 graduate students, 15–20 postdoctoral researchers, and >200 undergraduate students who are trained in our collections and research labs. Our faculty, associated staff, and students typically produce more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications and teach more than 40 university courses each academic year.
Documenting Biodiversity and Cultural Heritage
Additionally, faculty-curators supervise the growth and maintenance of scientific collections containing more than 40 million specimens of modern and fossil 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 our faculty and staff overseeing about $9.5 million in expenditures for research and collection activities, including about $7.5 million in state and federal grants, and received 19 new grants totaling >$4 million. This per-capita funding rate is high, even for a research-intensive university like the University of Florida.
Latest Research News
Scientists use fossils to assess the health of Florida’s largest remaining seagrass bed
The seagrass is greener along Florida’s Nature Coast … figuratively, that is. A new study published in the journal Marine…
A plant you’ve never heard of can do what scientists once thought impossible
About 3.7 billion years ago, a string of naturally occurring molecules — the same kind that astronomers have found in…
From prehistoric resident to runaway pet: First tegu fossil found in the U.S.
Originally from South America, the charismatic tegu made its way to the United States via the pet trade of the…
Department of Natural History Bylaws
These bylaws are intended to establish the general principles in order to guide the governance of the Department of Natural History of the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Download Department Bylaws [PDF]