CMU Herbarium director discusses career preserving history
Anna Monfils, director of the Central Michigan University Herbarium (CMC) poses for a portrait March 24, 2021 in the Biosciences building.
Museums offer a plethora of information but visitors often do not realize the work done behind the scenes to create it.
Anna Monfils, director of the Central Michigan University Herbarium, has made a career out of preserving plant fossils. She said very few people on campus understand how the museum she works in came to life.
“You guys hear of museums,” Monfils said. “You see what they put on display, but what’s in the basement and ancillary buildings are specimens that have been collected for hundreds of years."
An herbarium organizes and preserves plant species to aid in research about climate change and viruses, according to Monfils.
“We take really complex stuff, and we make it seem really obvious in the end," she said.
The herbarium has existed at CMU for over 90 years. Created by Faith Johnston, it started as a single cabinet and has since grown into a lab with over 26,000 specimens – located in Biosciences 1010.
Monfils said there are over 1,000 herbaria worldwide that help with research on a global scale. In the past, Monfils has worked on preservation projects in Africa.
In the herbarium, Monfils has had help from undergraduate and graduate student volunteers and employees, such as Midland graduate student Sara Hansen, in the Earth and ecosystem science program.
“Some of the employees that have worked out really well have not been bio majors,” Monfils said.
While assisting in the herbarium alongside Monfils for the past two years, Hansen has analyzed data and worked hands-on with the plant collection.
Monfils said several graduate and undergraduate students volunteer and work in the herbarium. She said many things learned in her lab can be used in students careers.
“It has given me a lot of chances to connect with people internationally,” Hansen said.
The herbarium is opened to visitors upon request. Monfils said she has given tours to interested visitors and Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) have utilized the space for meetings.
Hansen said the images of all the specimen can also be found online.
"They’re all fully accessible for anyone to look at and download," Hansen said.
Monfils and Hansen are currently preparing for a trip to Scotland to attend the Society for Preservation of Natural History Collections annual meeting to talk about the next initiatives.
“If we could get more people involved, maybe some of that hiccup people have with science can be overcome,” Monfils said. “They realize, I don’t have to be someone else’s definition of a scientist."
