Christopher Herd

Dr. Christopher Herd, Curator, Meteorite Collection 

“Chris is passionate about collections and museums, and has contributed time and effort to ensuring that the model that characterizes museums and collections at the University of Alberta is maintained and held up as an example for other university-based collections.” - Dr. Heather Proctor

For the last 16 years, Dr. Christopher Herd has demonstrated exemplary leadership within the Meteorite Collection for which he curates and also within the University of Alberta Museums community.

Dr. Herd’s ongoing accomplishments in the Meteorite Collection have raised its elevation into a world-class museum collection at the University of Alberta. He led the effort to build the first-ever cold curation facility and has since pioneered cold curation methods for extraterrestrial samples. This facility was instrumental to growing the Meteorite Collection to include Tagish Lake specimens and several other meteorite samples from over 300 localities. Within the UAlberta Museums network, Dr. Herd has demonstrated tremendous leadership as a past and current member of the Policy and Planning Committee where his contributions helped to form the 2008 University of Alberta Museums and Collections Policy among other critical foundational documents. He has additionally provided input into various UAlberta Museums projects including museum collections barcoding and a universal museum collections search site. Dr. Herd’s accomplishments extend beyond the university as he has been selected to work on multiple projects with NASA and is a highly recognized scientific expert in martian meteorites, and meteorite curation and analysis. 

In addition to being at the forefront of his research and field of study, Dr. Herd is passionate about museum collections and has made significant contributions to ensure that the UAlberta Museums model is seen as a leader amongst university-based collections. 

Adapted from nomination and support letters by: Dr. Stephen Johnston, Chair (Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences); Lisa Budney, Collections and Museums Administrator (Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences); Dr. Heather Proctor, Professor, Curator of the Freshwater Invertebrate Collection (Department of Biological Sciences); Caroline Smith, Head of Collections, Department of Earth Sciences (Natural History Museum, London, UK).