Staff
Austin Hendy
Curator
University of Cincinnati, Ph.D. 2007
ahendy@nhm.org
Austin Hendy is the Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. In 2007, he obtained his doctorate at the University of Cincinnati, followed by post-doctoral fellowships at Yale University, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution, and Florida Museum of Natural History. An author on numerous scientific papers, he has conducted research in many parts of the world, but especially tropical South America. There he studies the biodiversity, biogeography and paleoecology of Cenozoic mollusc faunas. He is also interested in bioinformatics and the application of natural museum specimens and data for K-12 education. His publication list is available here.
Juliet Hook
Collections Manager
University of California, Davis, B.S. 2017
jhook@nhm.org
Juliet Hook holds a BS from UC Davis, where she focused her studies in Anthropology with a minor in Communications. Juliet joined the VP team part-time in February 2018 to work on a 2-year funded grant project (Bureau of Land Management Cooperative Agreement No. L17AC00191) to curate and conserve Pleistocene vertebrate fossils from Gypsum Cave, Nevada. This is a historical collection that was collected in the 1930’s and notably features exceptional preservation of soft tissue, dung, and hair from the smaller species of ground sloth, Nothrotheriops shastensis.
Former & Emeritus Staff
Katy Estes-Smargiassi
Assistant Collections Manager, 2016-2018
University of Florida, M.A. 2015
Katy was an Assistant Collections Manager of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County from 2016-2018, and later moved on to become the Collections Manager of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA). In 2015, Katy obtained her masters degree from the University of Florida in Museology, with a concentration in Paleontology. She has experience in collections digitization as well as exhibit design and construction, and before coming to NHM she worked at the Florida Museum of Natural History, the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, and the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. Her research focuses on the paleoecology of Pleistocene scaphopod communities.
Erica Krimmel
Assistant Collections Manager, 2018-2019
San José State University, M.L.I.S. 2014
Erica Krimmel was an Assistant Collections Manager of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County from 2018-2019. Erica came to the LACMIP team in 2018 from the Chicago Academy of Sciences, where she was focused on biodiversity data management.
Daniel Markbreiter
Assistant Collections Manager, 2019-2021
Tufts University, B.S. 2016
Daniel Markbreiter was an Assistant Collections Manager of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County from 2019-2021. During his time with the Invertebrate Paleontology, Daniel led the day-to-day activities of an IMLS-funded project to digitize and rehouse the Invertebrate Paleontology type collection. Daniel was previously a GIS Analyst at California American Water, a Geoscientists-in-Park participant at Yellowstone & North Cascades National Parks, and an Invertebrate Zoology Collections Intern at the Smithsonian. Daniel is now a Junior Web Developer for the NHMLA.
Mary Stecheson
Collections Manager, 2010-2014
California State University, Northridge, M.S. 2002
Mary Stecheson joined the Department of Invertebrate Paleontology in 2003. She completed a Master’s Degree in geology from California State University, Northridge, studying Late Cretaceous gastropods from the Simi Hills in Southern California. Between 2003 and 2014, she was responsible for cataloging and curating the Department’s extensive holdings of Pleistocene fossils from the West Coast of North America, under a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Jann Vendetti
Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology (formerly)
Twila Bratcher Chair in Malacological Research (currently)
University of California Berkeley, PhD 2009
Jann is the first Twila Bratcher Chair in Malacological Research at NHMLA. She began in 2014 after a postdoctoral research position in Pat Krug‘s lab at California State University, Los Angeles. Prior to that she received her Ph.D. with Carole Hickman in the UC Berkeley Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology where she studied living and fossil gastropods. Jann is interested in the evolutionary biology and systematics of buccinid gastropods and sacoglossan sea slugs. Recently she has been assessing the historical biodiversity of terrestrial gastropods in Los Angeles county and working with volunteer citizen scientists to understand the influence of urbanization on these animals. Jann considers herself primarily an evolutionary biologist and malacologist, with research experience and interest in invertebrate paleontology.
Lindsay Walker
Collections Manager, 2020-2022
Assistant Collections Manager, 2016-2020
University of Colorado, Boulder, M.S. 2015
Lindsay Walker was the Collections Manager of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Before joining the LACMIP team in 2016, she worked on various curation and digitization projects at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, Natural History Museum of Utah, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, and the American Museum of Natural History. From 2016-2020, Lindsay managed two grant-funded projects to digitize LACMIP’s Cretaceous and fossil insect collections as an Assistant Collections Manager.
Shawn Wiedrick
Assistant Collections Manager, 2018-2021
California State University, Fullerton, M.S. 2018
Shawn was an Assistant Collections Manager of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County from 2018-2021. Before joining LACMIP, he studied the morphology and molecular systematics of the eastern Pacific ‘Ocinebrina’ Jousseaume, 1880 at CSU-Fullerton. Shawn was mentored by the late James Hamilton McLean (LACM) and has interests in most recent mollusks, in particular, gastropods. He has published mostly on microscopic turriform-conoideans, and has concentrated his efforts in understanding members of the Muricidae and wordwide micro-molluscan fauna. He lead the day-to-day digitization efforts for our NSF funded EPICC-TCN project, and scheduled and trained student interns and volunteers.
Edward C. Wilson
Curator Emeritus and Research Associate
University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D. 1966
Edward was Invertebrate Paleontology curator from 1967 to 1994. He was responsible for consolidating a number of the major invertebrate fossil collections of Los Angeles. These included the core LACM collection and those of the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. His major research work described Permian age corals of North and South America, but also researched mollusks (rostroconchs, gastropods, cephalopods, bivalves) and miscellaneous other fossils, Recent reef corals of Mexico, and a variety of related subjects.
Prior to 2010, the IP collections were managed by LouElla Saul, Lindsey Groves (NHMLA Malacology), Kenneth Johnson (NHM London), Harry Filkorn, and the NHMLA’s Marine Biodiversity Center (“MBC”).
Research Associates
LouElla R. Saul
University of California, Los Angeles, M.S. 1984
Prior to joining the Invertebrate Paleontology staff in 1985, LouElla Saul taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and maintained their invertebrate fossil collections. These large collections were moved to the Natural History Museum in 1985, and Ms. Saul became Collections Manager in the Department. She became a Research Associate in 1992, after retirement, and continues to study Cretaceous and Paleocene mollusks. Her publication list is available here.
Richard L. Squires
California Institute of Technology, Ph.D.
Richard Squires is Professor of Geology at California State University, Northridge. His research focus is on the paleontology and biostratigraphy of Late Cretaceous and early Cenozoic gastropods and bivalves from the Pacific slope of North America. His publication list is available here.
Robert J. Stanton
California Institute of Technology, Ph.D.
Bob Stanton joined the Museum as a Research Associate in 2000 after retiring from Texas A&M University. He is continuing his research into the Neogene biota of western North America. Bob’s publications list is available here.
John Alderson
California State University, Northridge, B.S.
John’s main research interests are: Cretaceous ammonites of California and the west coast, Cretaceous stratigraphy of the Santa Monica Mountains, Miocene mollusks of the Santa Monica Mountains, and detailed mapping of Cretaceous, Paleocene, and Miocene rocks of the Santa Monica Mountains. John Alderson’s publications list is available here.
