ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

The American Museum of Natural History is one of the world’s preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. Since its founding in 1869, the museum has pursued its mission—to discover, interpret, and share information about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe—through a broad program of scientific research, education, and exhibition. Each year, approximately 5 million visitors experience the museum’s 45 permanent exhibition galleries, which include some of the world’s greatest dioramas, fossil halls, and the Rose Center for Earth and Space, home of the Hayden Planetarium. The museum’s collections, only a tiny fraction of which are on view, surpass 34 million specimens and artifacts. They are an invaluable resource for the museum’s 200 scientists, for graduate students in its Richard Gilder Graduate School—the Western Hemisphere’s only museum-based PhD-granting program—and for researchers around the world.