Camm Swift

Dr. Camm C. Swift joined the museum as Associate Curator in 1970 after a PhD in Biology, Florida State University; MA Department of Zoology, University of Michigan; and BA in Zoology, University of California, Berkeley. After doctoral studies on the biogeography of southeastern US freshwater fishes, he built up the comparative skeleton collections for fossil and archaeological studies and conducted expeditionary work in Mexico, Central America, the Indus River Delta, Pakistan, and Amazonian Peru.   His research interests have been on southeastern US freshwater fishes, archaeological fish remains, Cenozoic fossil fishes, and ethnolinguistic studies of fish names in the Peruvian Amazon. He also studies the biology, evolution, and conservation of the freshwater and estuarine fishes of coastal southern California, including work on Unarmored Threespine Stickleback (1972–1995; 2018–present), Tidewater Gobies (2003-2005), and work with the National Marine Fisheries Service Recovery Team for Southern Steelhead (2003-2008). His research with students in the Museum’s High School Workshop Class in the early 1970s led to the recognition of the endangered status of the Tidewater Goby.

In addition to research, he served as the curatorial advisor to the NHMLA Marine Hall (1970–1977), and helped produce a traveling exhibit on sharks that was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Precollege Education Grant. This exhibit traveled for five years and was refurbished for additional years due to strong demand. For several years before and after leaving the museum in early 1993, he served as Secretary of the Southern California Academy of Sciences (SCAS) and also served on the High School Research Committee, placing promising high school students in scientific laboratories in southern California. He was Vice President and President (1989–1991) of SCAS. In 1991, he became an Academy Fellow, and also later received the Wheeler I. North Award for Scientific Excellence (2011) for years of work on southern California freshwater and estuarine fishes. He was also President elect, President, and past President of the California Nevada Chapter of the American Fisheries Society 1997–1999 and received their Award of Excellence in 1997.  

After early retirement from the museum, he was a full-time Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biology at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles (1994–1998), an independent consultant on biology and conservation of southern California freshwater fishes (1998–2003), and a Senior Project Scientist with ENTRIX, Inc. (later Cardno, Inc.) (2003–2010).  He retired to northern Georgia in 2011 and still does research, as well as volunteer collecting and educational programs with the Non-Game Section of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the North American Native Fish Association, and the Georgia River Network.