Hello, and welcome back to so you got to lifesite degree. We're your hosts Greta and Lisa to lifelight undergrad students trying to navigate our future careers. This is Episode 21. And we're talking to Dr. Sebastian conviced about museum curation.
How are you doing today, Lisa? I'm doing okay. So I recently just got to go into lab for my lab position, which is like lead up to my research thesis, which is really cool. But I'm also simultaneously balancing it with four week intensive lab course as mandatory for our programme. Everything's all starting up all at once, because things are opening up. So that's been really physically challenging. But I have a couple of cute stories about lab well, namely, just the naming of things around the lab. Like there seemed to be a lot of little lab inside jokes. And in particular, this this one person in the lab, I was kind of sitting at their desk because we kind of just rotate around because of COVID. And I noticed that they had a bunch of random objects on their desks. And one of them was this tiny hanging Swiffer thing, okay. And for context, my supervisor is Dr. bramson. And so this was like this tiny little Swiffer thing hanging from like the wall next to her desk, and it was labelled swepson. And then she also had like a tiny heater next to her desk, I guess for the winter. And it was called Jonathan worth son. Yeah. And then yeah, there's just like other cute stuff. You'll go to the fridge to get some antibodies and like the label will say Team phospho antibodies with like a little swipe. Perfect club for you. Yeah, very well suited. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. I recently went on a bit of a weekend trip with some friends and my roommate, which was very fun. I think this is like maybe the first one we've done in uni. Surprisingly. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, I mean, what do you mean in your graduated? Yeah, that's not even in uni. Yeah, so we went to Trump on we ate lots of Twizzlers, and went on hikes and saw nice sunsets and saw a lot of deer, which was very exciting to me. Is this the one where you took that photo where you're standing in a lake? Yeah, that is just photo. Yeah, Rita's friend posted this photo of them and then two other friends kind of silhouetted against like either a sunrise or a sunset mountain scene. And then like they're standing kind of like in a lake and it's like one of those artsy photos that you see like a doctor's offices. Yeah, we were like this is like a Pinterest photo. Yeah, it genuinely is like I was very shocked. How did you get a taken? Did you leave the phone? Like I think we got someone to take that one. Wow, that is a lot of trust in a stranger because you're saying I'm taking take my phone. I'm going to walk to the middle of a lake.
With no easy way
through the lake. Yeah. Yeah, it also looks like you're really far into the water. Yeah. And I'm surprised that it's so shallow that foreign Yeah, it's surprisingly was but it was Yeah. It looks like a giant puddle to me. Yeah. So what is the squirrel of the week? So this week, squirrel is grad squirrel. Okay, and this is a squirrel that came pretty close to us when my friend was taking grad photos of me. Ah, is this the same friend who Yeah, same friend with a photography business. And the reason that this is notable is because she had her like high definition camera. We caught the squirrel. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited. Yeah, so I sent you some photos. Yeah, you can check them out now. actually looks so good. Yeah. Oh, chubby. Oh, yeah. This is kind of all the squirrels on campus right now. That's not good for the long term, man. He's a big boy. I'd love to hear it. Alright, ready to interview Sebastian yo. This episode is sponsored by resume worded resume word is an AI powered online career platform that gives you instant tailored feedback on your resume and LinkedIn profile. They offer three main tools score might resume which uses AI technology to instantly score your resume according to what recruiters are looking for. Targeted resume which analyses job descriptions to identify important keywords and skills missing from your resume, and LinkedIn review which identifies gaps in your profile to increase your visibility. Each of these features provide specific feedback to help you get past automated resume filtering and land interviews. They both offer free tools and optional paid features. I've been using resume worded myself for the past few months and I'm finding it really improves my job applications. I'm consistently surprised by how many weaknesses and is able to identify and the helpfulness of the step by step feedback. I'm also subscribed to their email newsletter. I normally hate email newsletters, but this one genuinely provides the synced and helpful advice that I would have Never thought of otherwise, to check them out visit resume worded calm. This week's guest is Dr. Sebastian kvist. Sebastian is an associate curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, as well as an assistant professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto. He holds a Bachelor of Science in marine biology and a master's in biology from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. He also completed a PhD in comparative biology at the Richard Gilder graduate school at the American Museum of Natural History, then followed by a postdoc position at Harvard University. He's been working as a curator at the ROM for over six years. Thank you for joining us today, Sebastian. Thank you for having me, Lisa. All right. So super excited to talk to a museum curator, I didn't think that we would have someone like this on the podcast. So why don't you just start off by telling us what are some of your main responsibilities as a curator?
Yeah, I mean, being a museum curator is definitely multifaceted. There are lots of different things that that go through your everyday business, you know, I teach at the university, that's one of the main responsibilities that I have. So I'm, as a museum curator at the Royal Ontario Museum, we have sort of a unique position in that we're cross appointed with the University of Toronto as well. So I teach at the university, I have PhD masters and undergraduate students that are positioned or stationed at the wrong, but they get their degrees from the University as well. And of course, the main difference, I'd say, between a museum curator and a professor, is that I maintain a collection at the Royal Ontario Museum. So I'm the curator of invertebrates, which means that I take care of a collection that's very broad in its in its scope, and all the animals that lack a backbone, basically, all the animals that do not have vertebrae is what I take care of. So that's one thing. And then of course, we do, you know, a lot of research and being at a public institution like the rhombus, while we do a lot of public outreach. So I'd say that it's very multifaceted job that goes all the way from or sort of spans, teaching and research, all the way to to being a face of the public sector and being being a face for the wrong in general, I think,
yeah, that's really cool. I had no idea it was actually a cross appointed kind of position, do you want to tell us a bit more about what it means to curate a collection of invertebrate?
Yeah, sure. So you know, a natural history museum, one of the one of the main reasons that they exist, in my mind is that they provide this repository for natural history or, or art or culture in general, it's a repository for understanding natural history, culture, or art. And one of the things that that we do is that we, you know, we have some 15 million specimens, objects, and, and other things that the ROM in the collections. And so there are lots of different collections there. And taking care of a collection means that, you know, you care for the specimens that we have in the collection, the specimens that have been collected throughout the years, in this case, you know, for for centuries, and you also build the collection. So one of the things that we do in my lab is we go out, and we collect specimens, bring them back to the ROM in order to build certain aspects of the collection. And one thing people always ask, Well, what is the utility of such collections? Right? And it's a good, it's a good question, I think, and one that we as curators have a responsibility of educating the public on I think, in my opinion, a natural history collection provides snapshots of the world as we know it at a given time. And an area that we know is so sort of, if you collect specimens in one area of the world, that will give you a snapshot of that area of the world. at that particular time, what you need to do is line those snapshots up next to each other to create this moving image of how the world changes and how evolution changes. So that's why we need so many specimens is in order to line up those snapshots and create a moving image of the world as we know it.
Yeah, that's really cool. And it definitely seems like this is something you know, like you're really passionate about, which makes sense once you have this position. Sure. I was gonna ask you this later, but it seems like it's a good time to bring it up. How would you say that maybe like the role or prevalence of natural history museums has changed in the past couple decades, as culture has changed, technology has changed? And kind of like, where do you see that going in the future?
Yeah, that's a really, really good question. I think that science in general, and definitely natural history museums, you know, at least aim to follow the way that science is going. I think that it has become a bit more accessible to a general audience. You know, even 50 6070 years ago, the doors were sort of shut to the science sector, the general audience couldn't really understand the research that got put out because the language of science is different from the language of normal society. I think just the way we write and the way we speak about things. You know, there's a lot of Latin, there's a lot of really weird niche words that only pertain to our specific area. But what scientists have become a bit better at but that we still need to work more on I think, is bringing that you know, using language that a general audience can understand and so that our research that we do has the highest impact that it can in society. I think the natural history museums are moving in that direction as well. I think that we are Trying to be part of the community a bit more than we have before be relevant for people in that community. We try to listen to the people around us in terms of what should be researched or what should be put on exhibit, you know, at the different institutions. And I think that we need to continue moving forward to becoming we like to call the Rama 21st century Museum, you know, and we, and by that, I think I mean,
not not a museum about the 21st century
exactly, no, no. museum of, of its time for the people, I think, right, that that it needs to be a bit more relevant. I know, you know, 50 6070 years ago, natural history museums just had exhibits, really, and they weren't really relevant to people's everyday lives, except going to see exhibits, I think what we do now is we we show that research goes on behind the doors of the wrong that is relevant for climate change that is relevant for biodiversity and biodiversity loss. And the ROM is uniquely positioned in that we, you know, we're a natural history museum, but we also have arts departments and world culture departments. And we're a bit of a unique Museum in the world because of that. And so I think that we we have much more responsibility than other institutions, perhaps, to tap into communities in, you know, not only natural history, but also culture and art communities in and around Canada.
Yeah, that's really cool. Thanks for your take on that. So going back a bit, and maybe getting a bit more into the details of your role as a curator, you mentioned that some of your responsibilities are caring for specimens, building, collections, that sort of thing. And I was wondering if you could maybe give us a couple examples of like, specific collections that you've built, or ways in which you might have to care for specimens? I don't know. Like, I don't know anything about this stuff. Like you dust them off. No, no.
Yeah. Yeah. So what does it entail to care for specimens? Yeah, it's sort of, like sing to it. Yeah, exactly. It does sound like we put them to bed at night. And but you know, it's a good question. And I think that my collection, the one that I curate, together with my my colleagues at the ROM, or my technicians, that there is one of the one of the collections that might have the most challenges when it comes to curation, because my collection deals with the vast majority of life. So as I mentioned before, I you know, I'm the curator of all the animals, that lack of backbone rights, all the animals that don't have, and that accounts for about 99% of diversity in the world. But 95% of those are insects, something ridiculous like that, right? insects are so numerous. Yeah, they have their own collection at the wrong and the entomology department takes care of of the insect collection. But what my collection has is all the other animal groups in the world. And so animal animal life, as we know, it is divided up into depending on which researcher you ask, it's divided up into between 36 and 39 different major groups. So we call those phyla to say that there are 36, which is what I believe we deal with 35, out of the 36 phyla in the world, that means that we deal with, you know, all kinds of worms, jelly, fish, crustaceans, we deal with all the mollusks, right, the mussels and the snails and the squid and octopus, and corals and all that kind of stuff, right? So the specimens are very different in their shape, size and their texture and how they need to be maintained. So the invertebrate collection of the ROM necessarily needs to have lots of lots of different sizes of jars, they need to you know, some specimens can be stored dry, like shells, for example. And some specimens necessarily like jellyfish need to be kept in a medium in some sort of liquid.
And to be clear, these are not live specimen. No, correct? No, no, yes.
Okay. So all of the specimens are, we like to say that they're collected, so all of the specimens are collected, which is in our world is the opposite of being alive. So no, all the all the specimens there are collected there in either ethanol, which seems to keep the DNA intact really well. Or they were at one point at least stored in formalin, which seems to conserve the anatomy really well. And so there's a trade off between using formal and based media and using ethanol based media to preserve DNA or to preserve the anatomy. And so some specimens need formalin. Some specimens need ethanol, the specimen jars need to be topped up all the time. And I think in particular, one of the things that we do to curate Well, one of the most important things that we do when we curate collections, I think is getting rid of the backlogs. So there's, as you can imagine, you know that the invertebrate collection at the ROM has about one point 27 million specimens, and lots and lots of them just haven't been identified yet. So what we do is we you know, we have a wall of specimens that are haven't been identified, and we either myself or the technicians get help from external experts that help us to identify these specimens unless we managed to do it ourselves. And that's a big part of taking care of a collection is making sure that that backlog, at least is minimised throughout your your your tenure at the institution because there's always going to be a backlog in a natural history collection and making sure that they get put into the database into the collection proper is a really important task, I think. But yeah, so it's making sure that the jars are tightly sealed, making sure that the specimens are put in the right place. And our collection is in a specific room, right that has all the sprinkler systems and all that in place, but it's organised by taxonomy. So it's organised by the animal groups that the specimens belong to. So if it's a crustacean, it goes in the crustacean area, if it's a jellyfish, it goes in the jellyfish area. So it's divided by taxonomy in that in that section, and one of the important things is, of course, making sure that all the specimens are in the right place so that future curators, future researchers that use the collection can come in and find those specimens pretty easily, that makes sure that specimens don't dry up, or that they don't dry specimens don't get wet, etc. Yeah, so that's basically what museum what curation is. But I would stress that one of the most important things is making sure that all of the specimens in your collection are identified, which is no small feat when you have one point 27 million.
Yeah, definitely no, no small feat when you're dealing with like, all of life, or at least all of life without a backbone. That's, that's a lot of that's a lot of things. That's a lot. Yeah, a lot of fun, for sure. You've mentioned a couple times working with technicians and such. And so I was wondering, do you sort of lead a team of people at the wrong time? And if so, what are the different kinds of positions that you work alongside?
Yeah, that's right. So I do lead a team, although, you know, I like to think that there's no leader here, everyone has their own expertise, right, and everyone is at the same level. But it's true. I mean, I do work with two technicians at the wrong and they are world class, they know the collections better than anyone else. They know it certainly better than than I do. And they're really, really good at maintaining the collection. So the two pack collection technicians at the ROM Don Stacy and marine sadowski are just top class. So I work together with them to make sure that the collection is kept maintained in the in the right shape. And then of course, I have students as well being cross appointed at the at the university allows me to have students that are positioned at the ROM but but that, like I said, get their diploma from the university. And so I have both PhDs and masters and undergrads that that helped me with the research there. And a big part of their research is working with the specimen. So I think that's one of the perks of being at the wrong perhaps that you may or may not get at a district university setting is actually being able to go into the collections look at historical specimens. But also contemporary specimens, try to understand how things have changed over vast amounts of time, right. So our collections date back 100 years, maybe. But of course, there are some collections that the wrong like paleo biology that date back, you know, 50 6070 years in some collections that date back 500 510 520 million years. So so they're they're very, very, you know, we spend that broad timeline in general. So yeah, I do work with collections technicians and with students.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It seems like you would need a lot of people to manage, like such a big collection. Yeah, speaking of collections, and like large collections, we were wondering if you could tell us about your favourite or maybe for whatever reason, Least favourite piece that you own in the invertebrate collection at the wrong?
Oh, yes, certainly. Oh, I can go on about this for hours. There are lots of specimens that one of the things I think about the invertebrate collection is that you know, if you show someone a dinosaur, they can say that it's it, they can tell you that it's a dinosaur. I'm not saying that they're not really, really cool because they are. And if you show someone a Sabre Sabre tooth tiger, they know what that is. If you show someone a vampire bat, they know what that is. If you show someone a shark, they know what that is. But if I show you a Gorgon, cephalus in the invertebrate collection, you may not ever have seen anything like it. It's a basket starfish, which is one of my favourite specimens, it basically looks like a sea star or a starfish, it has five main arms, but then branching off of those arms are hundreds and hundreds of smaller arms. And so it becomes quite large, I'd say that the largest specimen that I've seen is probably about a foot in diameter, sort of round and a foot in diameter. But when it stretches out the arms, it probably becomes 345 or six feet in diameter, right. And so it uses its small arms to filter out particles in the water, and it brings the particles down the arms into the mouth and feeds on those. That's one of my favourite specimens only because a lot of people don't know about that these organisms exist, you know, and that's the beauty of the invertebrate collection, I can show you, you know, whenever I bring people in to give tours of the collection, a lot of the time at least they go I never even knew that that thing existed or I never knew that that was an animal you know that a lot of people think that some of these animals or plants or fungi or even rocks, you know, some of the animals look like rocks. So that's one of my favourites but one of the specimen that I always show people when I give tours of the ROM is a bit of a you know, a dull looking specimen it's it's brownish or greyish I guess, and it's not it's not super, super interesting to Look at except for the fact that it's about six feet long. And it is an earthworm,
and it's an invertebrate.
It's an invertebrate. So we have about Wow. Yeah. So I'd say that the the species grows to be about two metres or six feet, the particular specimen that we have as shrunk now in ethanol, so it's probably about three to four feet. But whenever I lift out a three to four feet, earthworm people go, what is that? A snake? But it's not right. Remember snakes out backbone. So this is in the invertebrate collection. It's actually an earthworm. And they know a lot of earthworms grow to be really, really big. And people don't know about them, which is cool. So it's cool to lift that an earthworm that size. That's one of my favourite specimens.
And this is a organism that's actually alive today. This isn't from
Yeah, that's right. Yes, no. Wow. And there are lots of cool stories about these, these earthworms, they have what we call a bio geographic distribution, meaning that the distribution that they have in the world is quite odd. A lot of them are live in tropical regions. And they live in tropical forests, mainly where it's really, really damp, and they won't go into the soil, they'll actually live on top of the ground. And they more or less look like snakes when they sort of wriggle around on on top of the ground. But then there's one species at least that has a very disjunct distribution compared to the rest. It exists only in Washington state in the US. And it's a it's a really, really good example of human mediated dispersal, humans brought it to Washington State, and it managed to persist there probably because it is so rainy. And it is so wet in Washington actually managed resistor, and it's become its own species over time. And and yeah, so it has a very, very odd distribution.
That's really cool. Yes. I mean, I've heard about giant insects from Oh, man, I don't remember the exact name of the period. But at some point in past when either co2 or oxygen, you probably know, really high sex grew like crazy big, but I had no idea that there were animals like that alive today. That's Yeah, that's really cool.
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I like to show people are these oversized specimens, right, because they, they're just eye catching. We have you know, we have really big lobsters we have really big like I said earthworms, great, huge corals, a lot of really cool jellyfish, and, of course, my favourite animal group, which is what I researched as well as leeches. And we have lots and lots of leeches at the run as well, both both alive and collected,
alive and collected. Yes, yes. All right. Well, you've told us, you know, some cute stories about the ROM, you've told us kind of about what your job is. But how do you actually go about becoming a museum curator? Maybe you could start with how you did that for yourself? Sure. Yeah. You know, I,
I sort of grew up in a museum setting. So for me, it was slightly more sort of direct. And what I wanted to do, I knew early on that I wanted to become a museum curator, I got my PhD from a natural history museum. In fact, the Richard giller graduate school at the American Museum of Natural History is the first school on the western hemisphere that is positioned at a museum. And so my diploma actually came from the American Museum of Natural History. And it's the first time on the western hemisphere that that's happened. It's been going on in Europe for quite a while. And in particular, in Paris, I've been really good at giving out PhD degrees from the museum there. And so I sort of, you know, I got my PhD at the Natural History Museum got really interested in taking care of collections. I'm a an organismal based researcher. And so I like to work with the specimens. I don't, you know, some people really like setting up experiments. Some people like theoretical biology, but my interest is evolutionary biology and organismal based biology. And so I knew early on that I wanted to become a curator. So I got a PhD, which is a requirement in most places for becoming a museum curator. And then when I got my degree, I managed to secure a postdoc at at Harvard's Museum of Natural History there as well. And so that's where I was positioned for my postdoc. And then the position that the ROM opened up, and it couldn't have been, you know, it was as if it was made for me, so I couldn't not apply. And luckily, I was successful in getting that position as well. So for me, it's been very, very straightforward. I think it started with a bachelor's in biology, getting interested in organismal, base biology, liking, working with specimens, going out seeing specimens in their natural habitat, and then continuing that at a natural history museum for my PhD and for my postdoc, and then ultimately getting the position at the ROM, which is a dream position, to be honest.
And you mentioned earlier that this was directly associated with the university. So when you applied for the curator position, where you automatically also a professor of u of t.
Yeah, so it's not automatic. By any means you have to apply for it. It takes a while and and most I'd say that almost all of the curators at the ROM are cross appointed and it just goes to show the the excellence of the curators at the ROM. I think it speaks to that fairly well. But yeah, most curators are cross appointed and it's not automatic, you have to apply for it and it goes through a committee and they either approve or deny that so I was cross appointed. It took about two months for me to get cross appointed after I started at But it is it does help us a lot. It's a unique position in the world. I think in that we're, you know, we're both university professors and museum curators, very few museums in the world can actually boast that, I think,
yeah, it also seems really busy. And I want to ask you about that trip. Before we get to that maybe we should first touch on maybe some other pathways that you think there might be to becoming a museum curator besides graduating with a PhD from a museum?
Yeah, sure. Yeah, no, absolutely. So one of the requirements, like I said, is, is normally to have a PhD. And so you do need formal research training in order to be become a curator, but you don't have to be positioned at a museum to do that, of course, you can get a PhD position at any university in the world, I'd say that it really helps being an organismal based biologists so it helps if you have a degree a PhD degree in something like comparative biology, or you know, phylogenetic systematics, classification of organisms in the world, it helps but you don't need one, I'd say. And then just being really, really interested in organisms or the biology, right. So you can have a degree in, like I said, theoretical biology, ecology, of course, epidemiology, you can have a position where you work a lot on climate change. There's a variety of positions at natural history museums that speak to different interests in biology, I'd say. But I think that the commonality between the paths that people take is that you need you do need a PhD to get there. And then what your PhD is in determines potentially what you're interested in. And you can have a wide variety of interests. But a PhD is necessarily a sort of a sort of a formal research background. And then other than that, you can you can have any background that you want, right, it's just it's a matter of being interested in the animals. That's, that's something that I can't stress enough, you know, if you have an interest in studying animals than a curator position might actually be a good, good thing for you. Yeah,
definitely. And similarly to that, do you think you might be able to comment on kind of like the job availability for museum curators, you know, like, it seems like a really cool job, but in your opinion, what what are your chances of actually being able to get a position like, yeah,
it's a great question. And one that I I wish that I had a bit more of an uplifting answer to, I will say that it's not, you know, these positions are few and far between, but they're not unheard of. And so I think that if you do have a genuine passion for it, then there are good chances of you at some point scoring a position like this, they are quite few. And you know, there are lots of natural history museums around the world. And all of these natural history museums, normally, they have researchers, they have curators, and so there are lots of positions open. But of course, there are also lots of biologists that really, really want these positions that are great at whatever they do. So I'd say just like any other facet of life, any other job that you might take, it's competitive, it is very competitive. So I won't, I don't want to say that it's not competitive. But if you do have a genuine interest for it, then there are high chances of you being able to get a position like that, if that's something that you really want, but it is it's a tough market right now, I'd say, especially considering COVID as well, there aren't too many positions open, because a lot of institutions are not hiring right now. So you know, if anyone's listening out there and they want, they're thinking about a curator career, I'd say absolutely go for it. And there are good chances that you if you keep your head down, and you do the work really well. And if you're passionate about animals, then you know, you should definitely go for it. It's a great job and a great position. But they're few and far between, I'd say
yeah, thanks for that insight. And now kind of going back to how you are working at the wrong but you're also a professor at U of T several times. While we've been talking. I've thought that sounds crazy to doing both of those things at once. Because being a professor is already like a crazy job. Sure. So like, how do you balance those two things? And what do your days look like?
Yeah, so one of the one of the good things, it's a really good question. One of the good things, I think, is that a lot of what we do is as curators mimic what the what the professor's do at the university, of course, you know, we teach and when we teach, we were our university professor hats. But when we do research, we're wearing both hats, right? We wearing both the museum Professor sorry, the museum curator and the university professor hats. So a lot of a lot of the things that we do are very similar to universities. But it is I'd say that being a curator is slightly more multifaceted than a university professor, perhaps only because you know, you work at a public institution. Normally you do a lot of public outreach that that you might not do at any university setting. The second thing, of course, is that you maintain a collection, which is one of the key drivers to or one of the key aspects of being a curator, right? So a lot of University Professors also have and maintain collections with their study animals because they need to understand evolution through time or they need to be able to set up different experiments at different times throughout their career. So they maintain populations of animals that help them in getting answers critical answers to scientific questions. And so it's not that different from what a museum curator does. So it might sound crazy having sort of two full time jobs by the sounds of it, but a lot of it intersects between the museum and the university. And one thing that I particularly enjoy, and that I think is a benefit of being a museum curator is talking to the public in capacity that is not always awarded or afforded to you at a university. So I think speaking to the public is, you know, one of the benefits and trying to get your, your research out there so people can understand your research. And you can talk about not only your own research, but the research that go that's going on in the world, whether it be you know, something critical, like the biogeography of viruses, right, which is very topical right now. Or if it's climate change, which has been topical for centuries and continues to be we have a responsibility, but also a platform at the wrong time to bring that to a general audience. And so I think that's definitely one of the differences between a university professor and a museum curator, but it is I mean, it's multifaceted, and it keeps you on your toes. And it's a lot of fun to sort of wearing different hats at different times.
Yeah. So you mentioned that one of the things that you get to do through the ROM is that you get to speak to public audiences, do you have an example of what some of these events might look like?
So the ROM has programmes throughout the year where a public is invited into the ROM to participate in gatherings where there are presentations on different topics, whether it be you know, discussions about African heritage or discussions about anthropology in the 21st century, or it could be discussions about a new art exhibit that's that's opening at the ROM or elsewhere, all the way to natural history, of course, talking about climate change, biodiversity, biodiversity loss, or the finding of new species and how all organisms in the world are related to each other. For example, the ROM has programmes all the way through the year where people can come in and listen to the researcher speak. That's a very good forum to reach the public. Of course, the second thing is that we do create exhibits original ROM original exhibits at the wrong and that is also a really good outlet for getting information to a general audience. And it's one that university professors normally don't have the privilege of being part of. And so creating those exhibits allow you to disseminate information to a general audience. And then we have colloquia at the ROM, if you're based in Toronto, the ROM has an annual ROM colloquium, or indeed, right now, because it's virtual, if you're based anywhere in the world, the ROM has an annual colloquium, where the researchers that the ROM are invited to, to give presentations on the research. And that's a really, really popular programme. And then, of course, we have lots of other programmes at the ROM where we speak to the people that frequent the ROM, members of the ROM have a lot of privileges, they get behind the scenes tours, they get tickets to to be the first to see new openings and new exhibits and stuff like that. And so it's a good way of getting getting our information getting that the idea of the ROM, but also the research that goes on behind the scenes to a general audience. So there's lots of programmes, and I encourage everyone to go to the to the ROM website and check out the programmes that are available throughout the year, because there are lots of them, and they're very varied and the shape and form that they take.
Yeah, and you've mentioned towards a couple of times now, is that something that you lead yourself or just something you help organise?
Yeah, no. So I lead them myself, as well as together with colleagues and together with the technicians at the ROM lots of tours normally, right, when it's a non COVID setting, we give a lot of tours. And one of the reasons that we do that is because people you know, some people don't realise that there is a lot of research going on behind the scenes at the ROM that their DNA labs at the ROM and that we have lots and lots of specimens that we're actively researching. And so you know, showing people behind the scenes, showing them the labs, showing them all the microscopes and all that sort of crazy technology that we use to image specimens. But also showing them the collections in general gives them a better idea of what what the ROM is all about. I think so tours is something that I really enjoy giving, especially with a varied audience, you know, from ages, you know, to to all the way to 85 9095. It's, it's fun to give, and it's people come in there with different backgrounds, right and with different ideas of what biodiversity is, and hopefully they leave with a bit more insight than they came there with. So it's something that I really, really liked doing.
Yeah, that's really cool. And you mentioned that tours are going to be soon starting up in person again.
Yeah, hopefully so so those tours are normally you know, they're not you can't just walk into the room and ask for a tour like that becoming a member at the ROM is a good first step of getting, you know, a tour behind the scenes. And it's important to follow all the COVID rules and regulations of course, and so we'll be very careful at least when we start opening up bringing people behind the scenes or giving tours like that, but hopefully that will start to be a bit more normal in the months or maybe even next year. Hopefully we can start doing those tours again. But yeah, when the ROM opens back up, I think what we will be focusing on in the first stage is To get people through the door, basically so that the room is open to families and the general audience of Toronto and Canada and the world again.
Yeah, that makes sense. And seems like we're nearing the end of this interview, I have one kind of like, before we end, I want to ask you one quick, cool question. Do you have an example of a funny story that has happened while you've been working as a curator at the ROM? Um,
yeah, lots, lots of them. I think showing specimens and seeing reactions to really weird specimens is, is really fun. And people, you know, showing people organisms that they didn't know existed is always fun, and seeing people sort of go what I thought that that was a rock, you know, and actually, it's actually an animal, but there are funny stories, but I think one of the things that stick in people's minds is when I tell them how we go about collecting the animals that I do research on, so I research leeches, and not everyone knows that leeches are both blood feeding and non blood feeding. So there are lots of non blood feeding leeches in the world as well. And there are about 700 different species of leeches and that 35 of them are so live in Ontario, and one of the ways that we collect leeches and try to find them when we're out in lakes and ponds is that we put shorts on and we wade into the water,
right? Oh,
so that's how that's how we so it's sort of easy collecting because the animals come to us rather than us having to hunt the animals. Oh, my goodness. So one of the you know, we always put this in papers as well that you know, these specimens were collected from the undersides of rocks or debris in the water, you know, pieces of wood. We also set traps liver traps, but one of the main ways that we collected the specimens is from exposed skin that's in the water. So that's, that's always fun to tell people.
Yeah, like imagine being an undergraduate student that being your summer job. Oh, it was to walk into a lake. And so it's not gonna like it.
Don't you know, it's to each his own. And I don't hold it against any of the students that don't want that, you know, the ones who were waiters for example, instead of exposing their skin. For the first two years of my leech career. I guess I wore waders. I didn't want any leeches attached to me. But then it just became so much easier to just walk into the water and you realise quickly that you can find so many more specimens when you're actually when you have exposed skin so that I mean, it's a fun story. It's it's people like to hear that. But yeah, that you know, there there are lots of funny stories, as you can imagine with the specimens that they're wrong.
Yeah, that's really cool. Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you would like to add?
I think that said, I think we we've hit on on most aspects of being a museum curator. It's a multifaceted job. It keeps you on your feet. It's really really fun and really, really interesting. If you like working with organisms, it's a dream job. If you like doing research and simultaneously talking to the public creating exhibits and teaching and taking care of collections, then it's a perfect job for you. But I think we've touched on touched on most aspects that I wanted to mention.
Perfect Thank you so much. Thank you. If you are interested in curation or working at the ROM you can check out Dr. exists work at this lab.com and if you're interested you can also check out the ROMs online invertebrate collection at the link in the show notes. Hello, if you've made it all the way here congratulations. It's time for a review of the podcast review the podcast vote freedom. What does this week's review say? This week's review is from Alexa 2366 they write the hosts have excellent report. This podcast is both entertaining and interesting. I've learned a lot so far. And as someone with a science degree, it's been really helpful to learn about different career paths I could pursue Oh, what a lovely review Alexa, if you would like to leave us a review you can do so on Apple podcast link in the show notes. Feel free to include honest feedback about the podcast with us. We love to hear your thoughts and we will probably read your review on the show like above. This has been another episode of so you got a lifestyle degree with Dr. Sebastian kvist about museum curation. We want to give special thanks to our crew over lovely patrons including our littleleaf patrons nyeem, the Neil Shafiq and shamima and our fantastic foliage patrons. If you would like to become a supporter of this podcast, you can visit our patreon@patreon.com slash so you got Alexa degree the music you're hearing is no regrets from audio hub.com Thanks for listening and see you next time.
