Museum Welcomes Dr. Caitlin Colleary
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is proud to announce that Dr. Caitlin Colleary has joined its staff as Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology.
A native of California, Dr. Colleary comes to the Museum from the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, where she most recently served as a biomolecular mass spectrometry postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Colleary’s research focuses on molecular preservation in fossils, an emerging field that seeks to extract biological data from fossils of an age much older than previously possible.
“We are thrilled to have Dr. Colleary join our talented Research & Collections Division and Vertebrate Paleontology staff,” says Dr. Gavin Svenson, Director of Research & Collections and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “Her unique research focus and creative skillset in connecting collections to visitor experiences ensure that our Vertebrate Paleontology program will remain strong well into the future.”
Dr. Colleary received her Ph.D. in Geosciences in 2018 from Virginia Tech, following completion of her Masters in Science in Paleobiology from the University of Bristol in 2013.
The Museum’s Vertebrate Paleontology team researches and stewards one of the institution’s most globally unique collections, which includes vertebrate faunas from the Ice Age, dinosaur fossils from the Late Cretaceous, and one of the world’s largest and most studied collections of Devonian fossil fish. The Devonian collection, in particular, is significant because of the globally rare preservation conditions of the Cleveland Shale. This local natural resource has yielded abundant fossil specimens unseen in most locations around the world, including the Museum’s iconic Dunkleosteus terreli specimens, from oceanic environments 300–400 million years old.