This plan builds on the museum's enormous strengths: the National Collections, our facilities and site sites, staff and affiliated agency partners, the NMNH Board, and our nearly five million visitors each year. The strategic plan was prepared by a team representing key areas of the Museum and includes valuable input from the NMNH Board, affiliated agencies and the entire Museum community. GOVERNANCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE: Transform the Museum's staff, management, culture and infrastructure to support our mission, vision and strategic plan.
When it opened in 1910 on the National Trade Center, the Museum—with its distinctive green tile dome—was the second largest building in Washington after the U.S. Located in the nation's capital, the Museum of Natural History is uniquely positioned for a prominent leadership position in relation to academic and government partners and colleagues, as well as international counterparts. The museum has the largest and best documented collections of natural history in the world; Trained and qualified research, collection and education staff; and a wonderful facility that is now undergoing significant renovation and improvement.
We will link the performance of each individual in the Museum to these overarching goals. Organization The National Museum of Natural History is part of the Smithsonian Institution, the world's leading museum and research complex. An Act of Congress established the Smithsonian in 1846 as a unique trust instrument for the benefit of the public with its stated mission the "increase and diffusion of knowledge." The Smithsonian's independent status represents a cornerstone of the institution's culture, granting critical intellectual and programmatic freedom.
Interdisciplinary research programs bring together scientists from the Museum's various departments and research institutions from across the Smithsonian and the world.
Global Volcanism Program
Astrobiology: Understanding Potentially Habitable Environments in the Solar System. Initiatives The interface between the biosphere and the solid Earth is an active, dynamic and connected environment. Initiatives. The interface between the biosphere and the solid Earth is an active, dynamic and connected environment. NMNH researchers propose to expand their long-standing expertise and laboratory capabilities in in situ precision microanalysis—the precise analysis of very small particles using electron microscopes—with the goal of understanding habitable environments on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system. They will do this by studying meteorites, terrestrial samples and samples returned by NASA missions to other bodies in the solar system.
Mineral Science Collections
Science 1. Discovering global biodiversity
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Understanding biodiversity: Biological revolutions and forces of change
- Present-day
- Cultural and linguistic loss and transformation in the global environment This program will document the rapidly disappearing diversity of human languages, a key to
The goal of this effort is to develop a biodiversity information portal and research program using state-of-the-art web technologies to create access to authentic, image-rich pages about all living things on Earth, past and present. ent. Department of Botany Right: Terry Erwin, entomologist studying insects in the NMNH Entomology Collection. Museum anthropologists communicate their findings to all audiences and strive to apply their insights to the problems of the contemporary world through means such as promoting intercultural and international understanding.
NMNH is and remains a world leader in the study of Native American cultures, languages and history. The Museum's repatriation program oversees the return of Native American human remains, as well as sacred and funerary objects, as required by law. Such research involves the study of human biological diversity as part of our species' adaptation to diverse environments – a subject.
Cultural and linguistic loss and transformation in the global environment This program will document the rapidly disappearing diversity of human languages, a key to This program will document the rapidly disappearing diversity of human languages, a key to understanding how people think, as well as human culture and history. The initiative will focus on the unparalleled linguistic resources at the National Anthropological Archives and the Human Studies Film Archive. While researching Old World connections with the people of the Americas, Dennis Stanford, an archaeologist, creates a stone tool known as a biface at the site of a Paleolithic quarry in Bergerac, France.
We focus our research on questions that are critical to understanding the natural world and humanity's place in it, building on the museum's established research strengths. Research Focus our research on questions central to understanding the natural world and humanity's place in it, building on the museum's established research strengths. Increase the use of our collections by accelerating the implementation of electronic cataloging of museum collections and the digitization of specimens, artifacts and related materials.
Above: The Museum's Hudsonian Godwit, Limosa haemastica, collected by Charles Darwin in 1833 on East Falkland Island, is the only specimen of the Darwin bird in North America. Expand the presence of NMNH science in local, national, and international media, including the Internet. NMNH Director Cristián Samper congratulates Bruce Smith, curator of archeology and director of the archaeobiology program, on receiving one of science's highest honors: election to the National Academy of Sciences.
Richard Vari, zoologist/consultant and Colombian research training program intern, Mauricio Torres, examines a new species of fish in the genus Creagrutus discovered by intern v. George Dixon, officer in charge of the HL Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy ship.
