In this post, Novacek will coordinate the research efforts of the scientific staff members, who are conducting investigations in more than 50 areas of biology, mineralogy, and anthropology. He will also advise the president on all matters dealing with the direction of research at the museum, and will act as the chief spokesman on the museum’s scientific programs, both internally and externally.
Novacek, who joined the museum staff in 1982 as an assistant curator, will continue his research in systematics and evolution, fossil history, and relationships of placental mammals.
A native of Evanston, Ill., Novacek is the author of some 100 publications on systematic methods, evolution, and morphological and biochemical phylogeny of animals; mammalian auditory evolution; vertebrate biogeography; and faunal history. His work in the Andes Mountains, where he discovered the fossil remains of prehistoric whales and other mammals, led to new investigations of South American continental drift, biogeography, and ...
