Name: Holly Morgenroth

What is your role on the NatSCA committee? Treasurer

Job Title & Institution: Collections Officer, Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM)

Twitter username: @Comet_Moth_HM

Tell us about your day job:

A bit of everything.

My specialism is natural history (I am a marine biologist by degree), so I am the first port of call for anything that is recently dead (biology) or long time dead (palaeontology) that isn’t human. I deal with public enquiries, write exhibitions, give talks and care for the collections.

As Collections Officer I manage a small team of Assistant Curators and oversee the collections management for all the collections, not just natural history. I help to write policies and funding bids, coordinate team projects and manage budgets. I also manage a few volunteers.

Are you working on any projects that you’re really excited by at the moment?

HMSChallenger.net – check it out!

What do you love most about working with natural science collections?

Dead things in jars. Spirit collections fascinate me.

I have a bit of a thing for glass – currently thinking of Blaschka models and contemporary artist Steffen Dam.

Occasionally coming across specimens from some of the early voyages  – Challenger, Lightning, Beagle, Blossom etc.

Puzzles – piecing together the stories behind the specimens.

What would your career be in an alternate universe without museums?

If my ears would let me dive and boats didn’t make me very sick, then a marine biologist. Otherwise a florist perhaps…

What is your favourite museum, and why? (It can be anywhere in the world, and doesn’t have to be natural science-related!)

Horniman – I love the aquarium, particularly the tank inspired by Victorian naturalist P. H. Gosse.

Gosse-inspired tank in the Horniman Museum & Gardens aquarium (Image: Horniman Museum & Gardens)