BIOGRAPHY

As a cultural anthropologist, I study scientific cultures within museums, examining how ideas about nature and life evolve in an age of genomics. My work bridges ethnographic and natural history collections, and I have over 20 years of experience in museums as an ethnographer, researcher, and exhibit content developer. I’ve managed projects, written grants, and collaborated with a wide range of stakeholders—from social and biological scientists to Indigenous community members, grant agencies, and public audiences.

To date, I have led the creation, development, and production of over 50 research and exhibit projects in museums and universities internationally. I have conducted research in more than 25 museums and laboratories across six countries (France, Denmark, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the USA). My research has been funded by institutions such as the Smithsonian, Musée du quai Branly, Wenner-Gren Foundation, National Science Foundation, and Social Science Research Council, and has been presented at over 30 international conferences. I have also published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on topics such as the material culture of collections and collecting (Van Allen 2020a; 2020c), ethnographic studies within museums (Van Allen 2016; 2017; 2018; 2019b; 2023; 2024), genomic sampling in museums (Van Allen 2019a; 2024b), and using specimen collections as tools for species conservation and ecological restoration (Van Allen 2020b; 2020c; 2022).

Trained as both an anthropologist and an artist, I bring a unique approach to natural history museums, advocating for the integration of social sciences and natural history through research, education, and public outreach. I have taught courses on the history of museums, material culture, and feminist science and technology studies (STS) and served on doctoral committees. I also lead student workshops on engaging with museum collections through techniques like drawing, photography, and photogrammetry. Through outreach talks and lectures, I have shared my research with larger public audiences, including a LongNow Foundation Ignite talk (2019) and a Smithsonian Virtual Science Café presentation (2021). Previously, I served on the Council for Museum Anthropology Board as Chair of the Book Award Committee, as a Scientific Advisor for the Smithsonian’s Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA), and as a Scientific Advisor for the Smithsonian exhibit Our Places: Connecting People and Nature at the National Museum of Natural History. I recently concluded a term on the Board of Directors for the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at U.C. Berkeley, and I am currently a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences, and in the Deptartment of Anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

I earned my Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Sociocultural Anthropology in 2016, with a dissertation examining the scientific communities at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and their efforts to cryopreserve genomic samples for uncertain ecological futures. My research explored how living things are transformed into various forms of data within museums, and how these specimens acquire different meanings and values as they circulate across domains.

My postdoctoral research has included work at several international institutions. From 2017 to 2018, I conducted research at the Musée du quai Branly and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, where I connected ethnographic featherwork objects and scientific bird specimens from Amazon expeditions in the 16th–18th centuries. This research gathered data on the evolving significance of these specimens—from preserved bird skins and blood samples to genomic data—as records of biodiversity, lost ecologies, and cultural heritage for Indigenous groups from Brazil.

My current research projects include Remaking Museums in a Time of Extinction: Amazonian Birds and Featherwork as Cultural and Ecological Heritage, which examines how museum collections serve as archives of cultural heritage and biodiversity conservation, and Biobanking for the Future in Japan, France, and the USA: A Comparative Study of Preserving Biodiversity in an Age of Extinction, funded by the Social Science Research Council’s Abe Fellowship (2019–2022). This project compares the collection and exchange of specimens, tissue samples, and genomic data at three national museums in the USA, France, and Japan, focusing on their efforts to biobank genome-quality samples and the challenges of navigating international bioprospecting policies, biodiversity monitoring, and species loss concerns.

I am also preparing a manuscript of Crafting Nature, my doctoral research, and co-editing a volume with Dr. Joshua Bell, Curator of Globalization at the Smithsonian NMNH. The volume, Birds as Material Culture: Engagements Between Anthropologists and Zoologists, brings together various perspectives on bird specimens and artifacts at the Smithsonian, from biomimicry to genomics to non-human kinship networks.

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Research specializations include:
History and theory of museums and collections across natural-cultural domains • Multispecies ethnographies and Feminist Science and Technology Studies • Museums as ethnographic field sites • Material culture and biographies of objects • Anthropologies of craft and technique • The impact of emerging technologies on objects and museums, including digital imaging (digitization, 3D modeling) and biotechnology (genetic sampling, biobanking)