We are a museum of 65,000 vintage bird and mammal specimens at a small liberal arts college in Los Angeles. With our team of students, we conduct cutting-edge research—combining vintage specimens with modern DNA technology—to understand how Earth’s biodiversity got here and where it is headed in the future.
Dr. McCormack uses museum specimens and genomes to study the evolutionary history of birds, focusing especially on how both ancient landscape changes and more recent human-caused environmental changes affect birds’ distributions, appearance, and DNA...
Whitney has experience with genomics and museum collections. She is currently a PhD student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program at UCLA where she is studying the genetics of color evolution using large-scale biodiversity data. From 2012...
Jenny heads the Moore Lab's outreach activities, planning tours and special events with local schools, collaborators, and the community. She has a background working with environmental NGOs and museums in exhibition programming, event planning, and...
Sean studies the historical ecology of birds in Los Angeles County across a temporal gradient using museum specimens, citizen-science data, and field surveys. Concurrent with his work at the Moore Lab, Sean also manages the Cal State Los Angeles Bird...
Brenda has experience working with large citizen science datasets and incorporating them into spatial models to understand species distributions over thousands of years. Having recently graduated with her master’s degree from Cal Poly Pomona, Brenda...
Marky has been a part of several research projects, of which most have revolved around her love of museum collections. She is also an avid birder and artist, devoting much of her time to observing and taking notes on the birds she sees. Having...
Russell has explored his love of animals through a wide variety of lab and field experiences. During his free time he prefers to be outside searching for wildlife with friends and practicing his photography. After graduating from Oregon State...
Alana studies the hybridization of two species of Calocitta Magpie-Jays. She has been conducting this research and assisting with collections management since she was a Biology undergraduate at Occidental. She additionally has experience in wildlife...
Eliza has been assisting with research in the Genomics Center since she was an undergraduate at Occidental. Since graduating in 2022, she will continue working on various genomics research, such as the Mexican Bird Resurvey Project, managing the lab...