Alyssa Semerdjian

Collections Manager

I grew up in southern California, completed my masters at Cal Poly Humboldt and am currently working on my PhD at Oregon State Univeristy. My current research investigates small mammal morphological adaptations at varying scales across time and space, using a variety of types of museum specimens to answer my questions. 

My current position in the Vertebrate Musuem is primarily data management as we are working on putting all of our specimen data on Arctos - a platform used by museums worldwide to make their data accessible to researchers and the public. I also prepare and maintain specimens (which involves a variety of different duties that are generally more flashy than editing our database).  If you are a Cal Poly Humboldt student and are interested in seeing what a collections manager does and maybe trying out some of these tasks as a volunteer feel free to reach out!