Kristen MacKenzie revels in the challenges of managing 1.25+ million specimens for the earth sciences collections at the Museum. Kristen is delighted to support a highly active research group and scientists from around the world. Before arriving at the Museum in 2015, Kristen worked as the assistant collections manager in vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. She has also worked as a collections assistant (fossil collections) at Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History and the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Kristen’s MS in geology is from the University of Oregon, where she described the paleontology and geology of an Oligocene-Miocene vertebrate site in southern Oregon that she discovered in 2006. Kristen has become unreasonably fond of early fossil canid, camelid, and rodent alpha-taxonomy and is always enamored with sedimentary basin fill stratigraphy. Working with any Neogene fossil faunas makes her super happy! Dinosaur hunting with the Museum is also viscerally satisfying as is managing deep time collections.
Tracks and Scat
Poop. Yeah, we said it...POOP! Talk poop with our collections team as they relate images of recent track/scat findings to collection pieces and discuss just why poop is so important. Gather your scat knowledge and prepare for a stinky discussion. Giggles permitted.
Girls & Science
Clubhouse Chat with Kristen MacKenzie and Nicole Neu-Yagle
Women in STEAM careers share their inspirations and amazing achievements, and answer your questions about their jobs. Live now: DMNS Collections managers Kristen MacKenzie and Nicole Neu-Yagle!
Dogs!
Join Kristen Mackenzie, Earth Sciences Collections Manager at the Museum, for a talk about fossil dogs and their relatives. We have a number of cool fossils that relate to the evolutionary history of dogs and much of Kristen's work and research are on this topic.