The Department of Natural History at the Florida Museum, University of Florida, employs 31 faculty-curators and 22 collection managers who pursue a variety of scientific questions within the 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 21 postdoctoral 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 41 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 28 faculty overseeing about $65 million in total external grant support for research and collection activities, including 55 new grants totaling $9 million. This per-capita funding rate is high, even for a research-intensive university like the University of Florida.
Latest Research News
Caribbean parrots thought to be endemic are actually relicts of millennial-scale extinction
In a new study published in PNAS, researchers have extracted the first ancient DNA from Caribbean parrots, which they compared…
Hundreds of Andean bird species at risk due to deforestation: New research shows how to protect them
Birds native to the tropical Andes, many of which cannot be found anywhere else, are threatened by increasing agricultural development…
Ancient DNA reveals an early African origin of cattle in the Americas
Cattle may seem like uniquely American animals, steeped in the lore of cowboys, cattle drives and sprawling ranches. But cattle…
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]