Mammalogy Laboratory :: Internships & Volunteer Opportunities

The Mammal lab at the NYS Museum is an active research laboratory with numerous scientific projects underway at any given time. In addition to these focused hypothesis driven projects, we also have on-going efforts to expand our collections of bird and mammal skins and skeletons. The mammal lab welcomes volunteers interested in helping with our research and collections work. Our typical routine is to introduce a new volunteer to a variety of the tasks that we need help with so that they get a good idea of the type of work we do here. After this introductory period, we sometimes give them specific projects to tackle, depending on their interests, skills, and time commitment.

Our primary volunteer activity is to help prepare specimens for the collections. This includes each stage of specimen prep from skinning, skeletonizing, cleaning skeletons after they return from the bug box, to labeling specimens and boxes. There are sometimes opportunities to help with field work, depending on our research schedule.