2006-2007 - The Field Museum

ecordings, and photographed Paiute and Cree ethnographic objects; Josh Rubin of the University of
Michigan inventoried and rehoused Guam and Australian archaeological specimens and inventoried
Hopewell flint discs; Nick Wisseman of Northwestern University took photographs and conducted
research for the Donnelly Foundation World Columbian Exposition Project; all three interns also lent a
hand with the move of North American and Pacific collections to the new Collections Resource Center.
Nicola Sharrott (University of Illinois at Chicago) conducted archaeological fieldwork with Ryan Williams
excavating an ancient cemetery in Tiwanaku, and Hayris Gutierrez (University of Puerto Rico) worked
with Antonio Curet on excavating a geophysical anomaly at the entrance to a ball court at the civicceremonial
center of Tibes.
GRADUATE PROGRAMS
University of Chicago—Committee on Evolutionary Biology (CEB). This doctoral-degree granting
program within the division of Biological Sciences at the University of Chicago is a collaboration among
the University, The Field Museum, Brookfield Zoo, Lincoln Park Zoo, and Argonne National Laboratory.
Its faculty has been training doctoral students for research and teaching careers in evolutionary biology
since 1968. Twenty Field Museum scientists are actively involved in the CEB graduate training program,
comprising nearly a third of its faculty and supervising more than half of the program’s Ph.D. candidates.
Currently, 18 of CEB’s 27 students are conducting Field Museum-based projects. In 2006 CEB was
awarded a highly competitive grant from the Department of Education to enhance the training of gradate
students at the interface of evolutionary biology and conservation science. Curator Greg Mueller
(Botany), Associate Chair of the CEB since 2004, is the Project Director of the program, which builds
upon the strong interactions of the institutional partners.
University of Illinois at Chicago/Field Museum Joint Degree Program in Anthropology. This
program was established in 1995 in order to strengthen anthropology course offerings at UIC and enable
the university to grant the Ph.D. in Anthropology, and to facilitate access by UIC faculty and students to
Field Museum collections. Besides teaching on a regular basis at UIC, all of The Field Museum's
anthropology curators have adjunct professor status, and are members of the UIC graduate faculty,
chairing Ph.D. committees, serving on admissions committees for students, and on search and promotion
committees for teaching and curatorial programs; Field Museum curators collectively chaired more than
half a dozen doctoral committees in 2006. UIC graduate students actively conduct research in
Anthropology collections and labs. There are currently 15 Ph.D. students in the program, and two
graduate fellows in residence at the Museum.
Northwestern University/Field Museum Program in Anthropology. Formalized in Fall 2001, this
program consolidated an emerging relationship between the Anthropology programs at the Museum and
Northwestern. Eight Field Museum anthropology curators have adjunct professor status at Northwestern,
and engage in regular teaching duties that are part of the Northwestern University course offerings, and
select NU anthropologists have adjunct curator status at the Field. Two Northwestern students are
currently conducting graduate research with Field Museum curators.
University of Illinois at Chicago—Ecology and Evolution Program. This graduate-degree granting
program within the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago is a
collaboration between the department's eight organismal biologists and nine curators at The Field
Museum, as well as scientists from the Brookfield Zoo, Morton Arboretum and other area institutions. The
collaboration grew out of joint interest in training international colleagues, and the program has hosted
three MacArthur-sponsored programs for training in tropical conservation, as well as several NSF-funded
programs in Botany and Zoology. Nine students based in the Museum’s Department of Zoology and two
in Botany are currently pursuing their graduate studies under this program. Curators Bruce Patterson
(Zoology), Greg Mueller (Botany), and Scott Lidgard (Geology) serve as institutional liaisons.
Resident Graduate Students. Field Museum scientists lend their expertise to both undergraduate and
graduate instruction at universities in the Chicago area and around the world. As the Higher Education
section demonstrates, university teaching is central to the activity of Field Museum curators, as is
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