HMSC Connects! Podcast

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode, host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Wendel White, a photographer, educator, cultural worker, and the 2021 recipient of the Peabody Museum's Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode, host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Don Pfister, a professor at Harvard and a curator of the Farlow Reference Library and Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany.    

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode, host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with S. D. Biju, a biologist and professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Delhi, who is currently a Fellow at Harvard's Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study. He's a a biologist who studies amphibians like frogs, caecilians, and salamanders.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode, host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Adam Aja, the Chief Curator at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East or HMANE. On March 15, 2024, HMANE will release a new augmented reality experience for its From Stone to Silicone exhibition. It will transport visitors from modern Cambridge to the ancient past to pay tribute to an Assyrian king at the Palace of Nineveh. It's called The Art of Intimidation: A Journey to Ancient Assyria. Adam and Jennifer discuss the app, its creation, and the adventure HMANE has planned for visitors.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Caroline Fernald, HMSC's new Executive Director. 

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Elizabeth Solinga, the new Administrative Director of the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Adam Baldinger, the Curatorial Associate and Collections Manager of Invertebrate Zoology here at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Stephanie Mach, the curator of North American Collections at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. She focuses on the museum's historical, modern, and contemporary Native American collections. Stephanie is also a member of the Navajo Nation and the first Native curator for the North American Collections.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Hannah Marcus, a professor in Harvard's History of Science Department, and the new Faculty Director of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Aaron Gluck-Thaler, and Carolyn Bailey, PhD candidates in the History of Science and Visual Studies Departments at Harvard, and two of the guest curators for a new exhibition on surveillance at Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, which is slated to open on September 21.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund speaks with Dustin Johnson, a member of and Cultural Program Manager for the Gitxaała Nation, and Kara Schneiderman, the Peabody's Director of Collections, about Peabody Museum's repatriation process of returning meaningful objects to their origin communities.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Shoyo Sato, an Invertebrate Biologist who just finished his Ph.D. at Harvard. Shoyo is an old friend to HMSC. He's been volunteering at the Museum of Natural History since he was 12. We wanted to talk to him about that experience, what it has been like to grow up in the museum, how he and the museum have changed, and what it's like to look back at the museum as he steps into a new era of his life.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Abbie Sandoval-Focil, a bilingual museum educator at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, as well as Mia Hortado, a teen student in HMSC's "Hear Me Out" program. The Hear Me out program was created to reach out to the Latino community across Massachusetts and engage them in the goings on at the HMSC museums.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. HMSC is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year! A lot has changed over 10 years. It's been quite the journey, but we've been guided with grace by two Executive Directors. First, Jane Pickering, who is now the William and Muriel Seabury Howells Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, one of our partner museums at Harvard. And now, Brenda Tindal, who recently took on a new role as Chief Campus Curator for Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Today, Jennifer is reflecting with them on HMSC's first decade, and imagining how we grow from here.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Ilisa Barbash, the curator of Visual Anthropology for the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, and a documentary filmmaker. In this episode, Ilisa describes her journey through visual anthropology, from film to Peabody curator. We also discuss an upcoming photography exhibition for the Peabody Museum's Gardner Fellowship, which Ilisa curates. This year's exhibition, titled Shehuo: Community Fire, features the work of Zhang Xiao, who explores the transformation of Shehuo, a traditional spring festival held in rural northern China that coincides with the Lunar New Year. It opens on May 13.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Donald Sanders, an archaeologist and architect who compiled and published the life's work of Theresa Goell, a 20th-century archaeologist who broke gender and cultural barriers in her field with her work at Nemrud Dagi, an archaeological site in the remote mountainous regions of modern Turkey.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Peabody Archaeologist Jenny Carballo.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Professor Scott Edwards, the Curator of Ornithology for the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the Department Chair of Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with diorama maker, artist, geologist, and all-around renaissance man, Terry Chase.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Peter Der Manuelian, a professor of Egyptology and the Director of the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. Peter recently published a book called "Walking Among Pharaohs: George Reisner and the Dawn of Modern Egyptology," a 15-year project that documents the work and life of George Reisner, a Harvard Egyptologist who worked in Egypt during Egyptology's golden age, the era in which Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Breda Zimkus, the Director of Collections Operations at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. She coordinates all the activities among the museum's 10 different zoological collections, which support the work of hundreds of scientists and their groundbreaking science annually.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Davíd Carrasco, a professor in the Harvard Department of Anthropology as well as the Harvard Divinity School, where he teaches courses on the history of religions in the Americas. In their conversation, they explore the significance of Dia de los Muertos and the 20th anniversary of the special celebration at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Professor Carrasco recounts his first experience witnessing the Day of the Dead in Mexico City, his friendship with Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez, and his deep connection to Aztec culture.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Keith Ellenbogen, an underwater wildlife photographer, Associate Professor of Photography at SUNY, the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and a Visiting Artist at the MIT Sea Grant.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Annewies Van Den Hoek, a retired Greek language professor at the Harvard Divinity School, who's been spending her retirement photographing and cataloging an assortment of objects housed in the collections of the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. 

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Richard Ketchen, a horologist, or artisan who makes and repairs clocks.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Mrs. Yvonne Grovner, a resident of Sapelo Island, Georgia, and Master basketmaker, whose talents are featured in the new mini-exhibit: "Rice: Seeds from Africa" set within the Peabody Museum's Resetting the Table exhibition.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Andy Knoll, a now emeritus professor of earth sciences and biology, with dual appointments in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard. He's interested in how physical and biological processes have interacted across the span of our planet's history to shape our world.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's very special episode HMSC's Executive Director, Brenda Tindal, interviews none other than our usual host, Jennifer Berglund, HMSC exhibit and content developer. They discuss her career at HMSC including the genesis of this podcast series, as well as insight into her fascinating journey as a documentarian, biology enthusiast, National Geographic Explorer, and purveyor of science communication.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this week's episode host Jennifer Berglund delves into the collaboration behind the upcoming exhibit "In Search of Thoreau's Flowers," opening at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in May. Berglund asks Emily Meineke, Leah Sobsey, and Robin Vuchnich, the artists and scientists behind the multimedia exhibition inspired by the digitized collection of Henry David Thoreau's plant specimens from the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. Our women's history month-themed podcast interview features Stephanie Pierce, Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and the Museum of Comparative Zoology's very first female curator of vertebrate paleontology.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where we go behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. In this episode host Jennifer Berglund and guest Sarah Clunis, the Director of Academic Partnerships for the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and the new curator of their African collections, delve into important topics focusing on racial identity and healing from the collective trauma of slavery.

For the first HMSC Connects! podcast of 2022, host Jennifer Berglund speaks with the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture's new Executive Director, Brenda Tindal, reflecting on Brenda's first six months, the current state of the museums, and the significance of the upcoming 10th anniversary of HMSC. 

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Julia Szejnblum, the former coordinator of the Escúchame/Hear Me Out project at the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. The project is for teenagers from the Somerville and Chelsea, Mass. communities who identify as Latinos, Latinas, LatinX, or Hispanics to create media projects designed to make the museums more engaging and accessible to their communities.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Michaela Schmull, Director of Collections for the Harvard University Herbaria, about her work with a collection of about five and a half million dried and pressed botanical specimens and their associated artifacts, including the one-of-a-kind Glass Flowers models. 

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Gabriela Soto Laveaga, a professor of the History of Science in the History of Science department at Harvard, who researches Latin American history, science, and technology.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Dana Yoerger, Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who works in the Deep Submergence Laboratory. He designs, builds, and operates new kinds of underwater robots for use in the deep ocean. 

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Gonzalo Giribet, the new director of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, and curator of invertebrate zoology. Giribet recounts his insatiable interest in scouring the beach for shells growing up south of Barcelona, Spain, which ultimately led him into a career as a scientist.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with James Hanken, Professor of Biology at Harvard University and outgoing Director and Curator of Herpetology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Jennifer speaks with Professor Hanken about his fascination with natural history from a young age in Queens, NY, his choice between a career in nature photography and academia, seeing the potential in renovating the collections, and the joy of watching vultures create a home in his garage during the pandemic. 

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Phil Deloria, the Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History at Harvard, and the chair of the committee on degrees in history and literature. Deloria has been working with the Peabody Museum as the chair of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act committee and has been instrumental in guiding the Peabody on its efforts to repatriate culturally affiliated Native American remains and objects.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Jan Sacco, the  Director of Exhibitions at HMSC. Jan is retiring at the end of June. Not only is Jan an exhibit developer for our wonderful exhibitions, but she's also been an inspiring force within the HMSC organization.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. For this year's summer solstice episode, Jennifer Berglund is speaking with John O'Keefe. John is a recently retired forest ecologist and coordinator of the Fisher Museum at the Harvard Forest in Petersham. Today, John is going to take us on a journey through the woods during the solstice, highlighting the magnificence of New England's forests and the challenges they face.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Castle McLaughlin, the curator of North American Ethnography at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Peter Galison, Director of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and Pellegrino University Professor of the History of Science and of Physics at Harvard. He is also co-founder of the Black Hole Initiative which, with the internationally-based Event Horizon Telescope project, successfully captured an image of a black hole in 2019. The discovery also inspired Galison’s recent film The Edge of All We Know.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Brenda Tindal, the incoming Executive Director of HMSC. Brenda is a museum practitioner, educator, researcher and scholar who uses the platform of museums to connect with a diversity of audiences.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Kiana Ziadkhanpour and Charles Hua, juniors at Harvard and passionate advocates for sustainability initiatives who are starting a new podcast called “Climate of Empathy” to tell the human stories behind our collective experience of global climate change. 

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund is speaking with Peter Der Manuelian, a professor of Egyptology, and the Director of the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. This week Jennifer Berglund chats with Lily Simonson, an artist whose giant, luminous paintings of rare underwater animals and environments are on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. 

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. Today, Jennifer is speaking with Caroline Hu, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department at Harvard, who studies the evolution of animal behavior in Hopi Hoekstra's lab. She's also a cartoonist, who will be leading a workshop that she hopes will help our visitors connect to our museum specimens on a deeper, more emotional level.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. Today, Jennifer is speaking with Elizabeth Lunbeck, a historian of gender, as well as the psychological sciences, including psychoanalysis and psychiatry.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. Today, Jennifer is speaking with Rebecca Fischer, a geophysicist and assistant professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard, who studies the formation and deep interiors of Earth and other planets.

Welcome to HMSC Connects! where Jennifer Berglund goes behind the scenes of four Harvard museums to explore the connections between us, our big, beautiful world, and even what lies beyond. Today, Jennifer is speaking with José Rosado, the Collections Manager and Curatorial Associate of the Herpetology Collection at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, a collection of roughly 345,000 amphibians and reptiles.