Jack Ashby

As an active member of the NatSCA committee, I enjoy being involved with all areas of museum work for the Association, particularly policy, decolonisation, public engagement and collections management and use – bringing experience from managing large and small museums. I also take responsibility for evaluation for NatSCA; and was part of the team who put together our 2020 and 2021 conferences on decolonisation and environmental breakdown. I am particularly interested in the ways that museums provide a window on the natural world, and the possible biases that exist in how museums talk about nature – two themes on which I focus much of my writing and public engagement work (as well as sharing the incredible things we can learn about life from specimens in museums).

I am the Assistant Director of the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, with strategic and operational overview of our varied activities – developing the Museum as both a valuable academic resource and an excellent public venue, while caring for the collections responsibly. I manage the Collections Team and the Operations and Visitor Services Team, and am responsible for the Museum’s exhibition programme.

My key zoological in interest in the mammals of Australia (where I regularly undertake fieldwork), as well as the role of museum collections in the history of the teaching of and public engagement with zoology. I am the President of the Society for the History of Natural History, and an honorary research fellow in UCL Science and Technology Studies.