Before Steve was employed by a Museum, he ran his own.
He began by collecting natural artifacts and specimens from his backyard and neighborhood. Eventually, his bedroom … aka the budding museum, expanded his collection to include plants and live animals. Kids from the neighborhood started coming over to see his museum.
Today, Steve studies the nature in our own backyards. He is the primary investigator of Project Squirrel, one of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum’s signature award-winning citizen science initiatives.
When he’s not out in the field, you can find Steve at the Museum doing taxidermy for the Academy’s collection or interacting with members. In fact, trying to “Stump Steve” is a staple of the Museum experience.
Steve is a member of the Ecological Society of America, American Society of Mammalogists, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collection, Chicago Herpetological Society, North American Native Fishes Association, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and the Boy Scouts of America.
He graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Zoology, Conservation and Wildlife Biology. He is working toward his PhD in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Contributions to Humans & Nature:
City Creatures blog posts:
- Grass: Breaking the Chain of Geese, Gulls, Goldfish, and Green Goo
- Eulogy for the Passenger Pigeon
- Snags
Articles in Minding Nature:
