Taxonomy (the science of naming, describing, and classifying organisms into groups based on shared characteristics) plays a key role helping scientists in museums to categorize specimens in order to study the relationship between each described group. Many names within taxonomy come from describing the specimen itself using physical attributes, the habitat in which it lives, etc. It could even be named after the people who discovered it! This presentation will give just a small step into the world of natural history museums, the collections from behind the scenes, and the work that goes into describing a new species.

Speaker:

Marshall Boyd is a Research and Collections Technician at the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, VA. He has a long background in biology starting from an early age, always having a passion for the outside world and a constant curiosity about everything concerning zoology (the scientific study of animals). Marshall studied forest birds as a master’s student at Salisbury University earning his degree in 2015. Later he was an adjunct faculty member for local Maryland community colleges before discovering his passion for natural history museum work at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Marshall worked within the Invertebrate Zoology department for several years where he fueled his interests in zoology, eventually leading him to his current position at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. Marshall has become a part of the team at VMNH working alongside the curators and other technicians for education and outreach, assisting in the constant care for museum collections, and working with the executive staff to help shape the future of VMNH.

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