Our Staff

Leslie Harris has worked with the polychaete collection since 1988. Ms. Harris is an eminent authority on the marine flora and fauna of California, and has been instrumental in the acquisition of major private polychaete collections for the museum.

Dr. Harris is a Curator Emeritus at Rancho La Brea.

Taryn works on various projects in the History Department, primarily in the Seaver Center for Western HIstory Research.

Caroline works with other MBC staff on all aspects of the development and maintenance of the collection.

Dr. Hendler has been Curator of Echinoderms since 1985, and served as head of the museum’s Department of Invertebrate Zoology.

An author on numerous scientific papers, Austin has conducted research in many parts of the world, but especially tropical South America. There he studies the biodiversity, biogeography and paleoecology of Cenozoic mollusc faunas.

Liliana Hernández joined the Community Science team in 2023 and has a deep commitment to serving the Latina/o/x/e community.

In 2025, Juliet became the Collections Manager in our Vertebrate Paleontology collection.

Amy Jaecker-Jones joined the community science program in 2018. Her primary responsibility is coordinating the City Nature Challenge, at both the local and international levels.

Dave Janiger is primarily responsible for responding to marine mammal strandings and curatorial work relating to the museum’s marine mammal collections.