Embedded within Algae, Fungi and Plants Collections, the Curator of Algae will ensure best practice in collections care and development and provide a world-class collection of natural history specimens with specimens acquired, curated and used and made available to facilitate research, teaching, training, reference and exhibitions. The successful applicant will join the team of Cryptogamic Herbarium curators responsible for the algae, diatom, bryophyte, lichen and slime mould collections, with a specific focus on the algal collections. The post will be appointed at Curator or Senior Curator level, commensurate to the level of the chosen applicant.
The Algae Herbarium
Assembled over more than 200 years and comprising an estimated 400k specimens, the Algal Herbarium at the Natural History Museum is an unparalleled collection of diverse organisms including seaweeds and freshwater algae such as charophytes and cyanobacteria (the diatoms are curated separately). It represents a unique resource with which to understand algal diversity, how it has changed through time and how it is now responding to rapid planetary change.
This role will work closely with NHM colleagues in the Cryptogamic Collections and Research team. We are working with the Museum’s Digital Collections Programme to make the herbarium digitally discoverable, through digitisation. More than any other area of the botanical collections, the algal collections are notable for the increased demand for molecular data to fully decipher the often cryptic diversity of algal species and to link taxonomic concepts to algal nomenclature via one of the largest collections of algal type specimens in the world.
This is an exciting opportunity to support the role of the Algal Herbarium in understanding, communicating, and conserving algal diversity on Earth.
To discuss the role in more detail, please contact Jo Wilbraham, Principal Curator, Algae, Fungi and Plants Collections (j.wilbraham@nhm.ac.uk).