7:00pm
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8:30pm |
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Museum Public Lecture: "Relevance of Museums in the 21st Century"
(Seminar/Conference)
Joe Keiper, Director VMNH
Bob Tracy hosting
Public lecture in 4069 Derring Hall starts at 7. Also join us afterwards for a reception in the Museum of Geosciences, 2062 Derring, for a chance to speak with Dr. Keiper and some of the curators of Virginia Tech's collections.
Joe Keiper, Director of the Virginia Museum of Natural History, will discuss museums' changing roles over time. In the past, museums were sacred places to gather and to conduct studies of the natural world. Museums, as collections-based institutions, still act as a unique resource for scientific inquiry often storing specimens and artifacts collected in past centuries. Modern methods allow specimens collected over time to yield new information. However, today's museums play new roles in communities as economic and tourism engines, and as a public connection to science.
Joe Keiper has been Director of VMNH since 2010, and prior to that, he was curator of invertebrates and Director of Science at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He received his PhD from Kent State University studying tiny insects, and held a postdoctoral position at the University of California-Riverside from 1998-2000. Keiper serves on the governing councils for the Martinsville-Henry County Historical Society, the Virginia Association of Museums, and the Association of Science Museum Directors. Hist Virginia Tech connection is that he serves on the Advisory Board for Reynolds Homestead in Patrick County. He has a 10 year old son, AJ, two cats, and a snake.
More information...
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