Research
I study the history of exploration, the environment, conservation and the natural sciences. My research focuses on expeditions through tropical regions and mountain ranges in Central and South America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a special emphasis on the Amazon Rainforest and Andes Mountains. I explore the complex relationships between explorers, scientific institutions and indigenous communities, and examine how these interactions were shaped into popular narratives about conservation biology and cultural heritage preservation.
My current research project uses a series of expeditions conducted by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County as a case study to explore the scientific contributions of explorers during the mid-twentieth century. These expeditions added thousands of botanical and zoological specimens to the museum’s growing research collections and resulted in a series of scientific journal articles, educational films, habitat dioramas and exhibitions. This research is being used for a Getty funded PST exhibit about the NHM’s dioramas and serves as the basis for my master’s thesis.
Current Projects
Writing
Unnatural Menageries: Natural History Museums, Specimen Collections and the Mid-Century Machris Expeditions
Maurice and Paquita Machris were dedicated conservationists, avid adventurers and philanthropic parsons of numerous scientific institutions and organizations throughout Los Angeles. From 1953 to 1963, the Machrises funded a series of biological expeditions that helped revitalize the stagnant research collections of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and transformed the Los Angeles Zoo into one of the world’s leading zoological parks. These expeditions led to scientific breakthroughs in botany, ornithology, mammalogy and entomology, and paved the way for an international conservation effort to save one of the world’s rarest species from extinction. . My M.A. thesis focuses on the scientific and biological contributions of these expeditions.
Before it’s Lost: A Biological Expedition into the Brazilian Wilderness
In 1956, the Machrises sponsored an expedition into the woodland savanna of central Brasil to conduct a biological survey of native species and collect specimens for NHM’s growing research collections. The expedition was a collaborative effort between the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Museo Nacional du Brasil to document the biological diversity of a region in Brazil that was slowly disappearing due to “human encroachment”. Though their efforts were largely focused on collecting native flora and fauna, expedition members also amassed a large assortment of anthropological artifacts from surrounding indigenous communities. This article highlights the scientific contributions of the expedition’s biological survey and examines the ethics of displaying specimens biological specimens alongside the material culture of indigenous peoples.
Exhibitions
Fabricating Wilderness: A Century of Dioramas at the NHM (Getty PST 2004)
This Getty funded exhibition, tentatively titled The Creation of Wilderness, will tell the historic, artistic and scientific stories of NHM's still-active habitat group dioramas. Though these theatrical recreations of nature have fallen in and out of favor over the last century, curators now praise them as valuable research archives, which preserve the ecology of habitats that no longer exist, as well as the history of collecting and interpreting them. At a time when many institutions have dismantled their dioramas, the NHM dioramas remain a dynamic part of the museum's galleries and are updated regularly by our full-time taxidermist. The Creation of Wilderness will encourage visitors to reconsider these windows into science and art through an immersive multi-year exhibit highlighting the role dioramas have played in shaping our collective perception of nature and how we view art. For more information, please click here.
