Museum Experience

I served as the collections manager of Virginia Tech’s Vertebrate Natural History Collection from 2015 to 2019

Duties included:
-Coordinating loans with multiple lab courses each semester
-Providing 4-5 tours each month
-Training undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants each semester in care and use of the collection
-Increasing the museum’s visibility through outreach events, press releases, blog posts, and creating a website
-Promoting the museum’s services by attending relevant conferences, community events, campus events, and workshops
-Conducting day to day maintenance, including topping off fluid specimens, ordering supplies, and pest management

Talks and Posters
(* indicates co-author is an undergraduate or technician)

*Hawkins, R., J. Metzgar, G. C. Brooks, and C. A. Haas. 2019. A tale of natural history collections education at Virginia Tech. Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections Conference, Chicago, IL, USA.

*Nelson, C. A., G. C. Brooks, C. A. Haas, and M. R. Stocker. 2019. Incorporating technology and multidisciplinary thinking into university collections. Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections Conference, Chicago, IL, USA.

*Hawkins, R., G. C. Brooks, and C. A. Haas. 2019. A tale of natural history collections education at Virginia Tech. Dennis Dean Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship Conference, Blacksburg, VA, USA.

*Nelson, C. A., G. C. Brooks, C. A. Haas, and M. R. Stocker. 2019. Incorporating technology and multidisciplinary thinking into university collections. Dennis Dean Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship Conference, Blacksburg, VA, USA.