CURATING ACROSS SPECIES
The museum’s vast holdings have also provided ample opportunities for curators with a passion for animals.
Jose Rosado, curatorial associate in the Department of Herpetology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, reflected that animals have fascinated him since his youth in Harlem, where he frequented the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
“I used to see all these scientists, these people walking around with white lab coats. And that’s what I wanted to be,” Rosado said.
After college, Rosado worked as a curatorial assistant at the American Museum of Natural History until then-curator of herpetology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernest E. Williams, recruited him to work there as collection manager.
“I had no intention of actually taking the job,” said Rosado. “I had a lot of knowledge of the problems that I had with [Harvard’s MCZ] in terms of loans and record-keeping and all of that. I just needed to find out who the devil was running the show.”
Rosado said that, during his job interview, he expressed his critiques of the museum and explained how he would remedy the situation.
“They were impressed, and they offered me the job,” he added. “It took them about six months to persuade me to come here.”
Rosado recounted how he modernized the MCZ collections. Now, specimens are stored in more effective containers, the infrastructure has been revamped, and much of the collection has been moved to the state-of-the-art Northwest Labs, according to Rosado.
Yet Rosado said he believes the museums should continue to improve.
“There are always new things that we discover. The collections are not static. They’re very dynamic,” he said. “People have this really misguided concept that all we do is sit here and store specimens.”
Rosado compared the museum collection to a living library that is constantly evolving with the development of new technology and research methods.
“The more our methodology improves in terms of getting information, the more information this collection actually provides us,” he added. “Natural history is fascinating. The amount of learning that is out there and the possibilities [are] endless.”
—Staff writer Maria H. Park can be reached at maria.park@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @Chirpark.