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SANTA BARBARA, CA— Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s new entomologist is an all-around naturalist with a flair for wielding the power of iNaturalist, the popular community science database. Museum staff are excited about the new skills he brings to the Museum’s team of on-site scientists working in the Collections & Research Center .
Schlinger Chair of Entomology Alex Harman, Ph.D., has now published research on grasshoppers, tiger beetles, and butterflies—but at age three, he was afraid of insects. He credits his grandmother, (who taught entomology) with turning his terror into appreciation by giving him woolly bear caterpillars and other harmless insects to hold. A year later, he started building his own insect collection, and has stuck with it ever since.