Collections Manager

Museum introduction:

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is the Rocky Mountain region’s leading resource for informal science education. Located in the heart of Denver’s City Park, and neighbor to the Denver Zoo, the Museum offers a variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities that help Museum visitors experience the natural wonders of Colorado, Earth, and the universe. More than 300,000 students and teachers are served by Museum each year. The Museum houses artifacts and specimens in its collections from around the world.

Job Description

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science seeks a Collections Manager in the Department of Earth Sciences to curate and manage approximately 1.2 million specimens in the areas of Vertebrate Paleontology, Invertebrate Paleontology, Paleobotany, Palynology, Ichnology, Research Casts, Gems, Minerals, Rocks, Micromounts, and Meteorites. The position supports the effort to grow the scientific output of the Department, to curate and expand its collections, and to help inspire diverse communities’ understanding of, and involvement in, science and the natural world.

The Department of Earth Science is an outwardly focused and collegial team that engages in international fieldwork but has strong emphasis on the geology and paleontology of the American West. The current staff has expertise in invertebrate and vertebrate paleontology and paleobotany, and each curator has at least one scholarly project in Colorado. The Department’s collections are sizeable and are growing; their composition and history are described at http://www.dmns.org/science/collections/. In addition to one full-time collections manager (this position), the Department has five curators, two fossil preparators who run a preparation laboratory that operates 364 days per year, and nearly 400 volunteers who engage in science, collections, and outreach.

Essential duties:

Practices professional collections management for department collections, including knowledge and application of laws and regulations pertaining to collections.
Facilitates the accession, deaccession, documentation, registration, and preparation of collections.
Organizes and systematically stores specimens for ease of access, and for long-term preservation.
Facilitates internal and external access and use of collections for purposes of research, education, loan, and exhibit.

Oversees the work of volunteers (approximately 75), provides trainings as required and mentors/supervises volunteers, students, and interns.
Provides information and expertise on collections to internal and external audiences.
Coordinates with Museum departments to support and deliver 5 – 10 (or more) internal and external educational programs per year.

Minimum qualifications:

Master’s Degree in Museum Studies, earth sciences or a related field required. Collection management experience can be substituted for education.
3 years’ experience handling museum collections required.
3 years’ experience with relational databases required.

Intermediate proficiency in Microsoft Office suite required.

Ideal candidate will:

Be a great team player.
Extremely organized, highly motivated, proactive.
Have supervisory experience.
Be able to positively connect with a wide range of people.
Be able to work across diverse communities.
Desire to learn international, federal, state and local laws and protocols for specimen care, and understand the goals and needs of natural history collections.

Core values:

We love science.
We are curious, creative and playful.
We cultivate relationships with each other, diverse communities, the environment and for our future.
We think critically and act with empathy.