Dr. Greg Graffin visited the National Museum of Natural History on July 10 at the invitation of Assoc. Prof. Tihomir Stefanov, the museum’s deputy director. Dr. Graffin holds a PhD in zoology from Cornell University and is a professor of natural sciences at the University of California and Cornell University. His research interests lie in the fields of evolutionary biology and palaeontology. In addition to being a zoologist, Dr. Graffin is the lead singer and co-founder of the Bad Religion band which is participating in the sixth edition of the Midalidare Rock in the Wine Valley International Rock Festival.
The two toured the new storage facilities for the scientific collections built with European funding under the DiSSCo project where Assoc. Prof. Stefanov gave him a detailed introduction to the ichthyological collections. The scientists exchanged information about their research projects related to modern methods for studying biodiversity and its conservation.
They then visited the museum’s exposition and shared their experiences as science communicators and on connecting science to the broader public discourse in popularizing scientific topics, particularly the theory of evolution and contemporary hypotheses regarding the origin of life.
