• Job Description

  Req#: 199320
  The Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University (NCSU) seeks a Collections manager for the NCSU Insect Museum. This is a full-time, research staff level position with benefits. The position reports to the faculty Director of the museum and has a desired state date of August 2024.
  
  
  The NCSU Insect Museum is a collection of insects and other arthropods located on the university’s main campus in Raleigh, NC, USA, and contributes to all major initiatives within the land grant university system. The nearly 2 million curated specimens are consistently used for 1) education of undergraduate and graduate-level students from NCSU and neighboring institutions, 2) innovative research on insect morphology, taxonomy, systematics, natural history, ecology, and evolution, and 3) extension, as both a reference for diagnostics and a voucher repository. The museum serves the broader scientific community as well as the faculty and students at NC State University.
  The NCSU Insect Museum has a rich history as a center for research and training of insect systematists. The strengths of the collection are in Hemiptera (namely Cicadellidae, Aphididae, Membracidae, and Reduviidae), Hymenoptera (Apidae), Diptera, Coleoptera, and Collembola. The collection serves as the state collection for North Carolina and is one of the most significant collections in the region. Future goals include building upon existing strengths while targeting candidate areas for expansion.
  
  This position has the following specific responsibilities in addition to performing the day-to-day duties required of an actively used and growing insect collection:
  
  
  • Specimen curation: the acquisition, processing, accession, and integration of new material to the NCSU Insect Museum.
  • Collection maintenance: the upkeep of existing specimens and associated data housed in the NCSU Insect Museum, loan processing, hosting visiting scientists, correspondence concerning data/specimen requests, and ordering supplies.
  • Digital records: contribute to the expansion and maintenance of the digital extended specimen through databasing efforts (platform used is TaxonWorks), and consistent contributions to data aggregators (i.e. GBIF).
  • Recruit, train, and supervise part-time technicians and student workers to assist in implementing collection operations and initiatives.
  • Manage a department-wide insect teaching collection used by the Entomology and Plant Pathology faculty in various courses.
  • Assist the Director in identifying and securing support for collection development activities, and in establishing policies affecting collection operations and development.
  • Promote collection development through the conduct of independent and collaborative collection-based research in arthropod faunistics and systematics.
  • Enhance collection development, usage, and visibility through the development and maintenance of relationships with arthropod systematists and biologists, both internal and external to the department and university system.
  • Continue professional development and maintain knowledge of contemporary best-practices for insect research collections through active participation in appropriate professional organizations, meetings, and related activities.

• About the company

  North Carolina State University is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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