Questionnaire: Dr Nancy Mercado Salas
Your Title, Name, Place of work?
Dr Nancy Mercado Salas, Hamburg
What is your current position/function at our institute?
Head of Section Crustacea, ztm (Centre for Taxonomy and Morphology)
What do you like about your job/position?
It is a privilege to take care of the collection and make it available to people from all over the world. Here at the museum, I also enjoy the interaction and supervision of students and working with my team and colleagues coming from different cultural backgrounds. Additionally, I deeply enjoy fieldwork, either on board of a research vessel or in the middle of a tropical forest, it is always an amazing experience.
Can you please describe your tasks at the LIB?
My research focuses on understanding the evolutionary processes that have shaped crustacean diversity, especially those processes related to the colonization and establishment in new habitats. In addition to my research, a great part of my work is devoted to the curation of the crustacean collection. Currently, together with my team, we are working on the digitization of the collection to make it accessible to researchers from all over the world. I also participate in expeditions to collect new material and in public outreach to promote the role of Natural History Collections on the conservation of biodiversity.
Keyword
Crustacea evolution
Is there something about the Institute that particularly appeals to you?
I like the diversity not only in the research topics we focus on and in our scientific collections but also the diversity of the people working at the LIB – it is great to have people with so many different cultures and experiences enriching our working environment.