The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) houses one of the world’s largest collections of biodiversity, including over 32 million biological specimens and 4 million fossils. The Division of Invertebrate Zoology is searching for a Scientific Assistant to assist the continued growth and management of the collections and associated resources (archives, databases, and tissues) of Arachnida and Myriapoda. The Division contains the world’s largest collection of spiders and second-largest collection of scorpions, as well as the largest collection of minor arachnid orders and one of the largest collections of myriapods in North America, with worldwide representation of taxa, emphasizing material from Africa, North America and elsewhere in the New World. The majority of specimens are preserved in ethanol, although large slide-mounted and frozen tissue collections are also represented.
Duties: The successful applicant will assist the curator in management of the collections including specimen sorting, labeling, preparation, accessioning and databasing new acquisitions; systematic arrangement, storage and organization of the collection; conservation (ethanol levels, pH, rehydration, label integrity, rehousing into better containers, etc.); routine collections tasks (assistance to visitors, response to requests for information, retrieving, packing and shipping loans to other institutions, unpacking and curating loan returns and donations to AMNH, databasing accessions, loan and visitor activity); museum and local community service (collection tours and related activities); training and supervision of students and volunteers; management of frozen tissues and associated data.
Qualifications: BS in Biology, Zoology or Entomology. Candidates with general knowledge of terrestrial arthropod (preferably arachnid and/or myriapod) morphology and systematics, good organizational skills and attention to details, and a good command of MS Word and Excel are preferred, with more experienced databasing ability desirable.
For more information and to apply please visit: careers.amnh.org/applicants/Central?quickFind=51947
All applicants must apply electronically through the AMNH Careers Website.