Matthew A. Brown

Director, Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections

Lecturer, Department of Geological Sciences

     Matthew Brown directs the vertebrate paleontology laboratories and collections, managing the museum functions of the collections and facilitating the research of 47 UT faculty, students, and research associates. We host over 100 research visitors per year, and field over 2000 active requests for specimen loans or archive searches.

     Brown joined the team as Laboratory Manager in 2009, and began by building state of the art fossil preparation and histology facilities centered around research and teaching. He designed an innovative course in paleontology laboratory methods that integrates museum theory, conservation philosophy, emerging technologies, and hands-on training to standardize methodological instruction. In January of 2014, Brown took on the role of supervising all of the vertebrate paleontology laboratories and collections.

     His primary research goal is to develop a more thorough understanding of how past and future treatments affect specimens as sources of data, and the impact these treatments have on the science of paleontology. This approach examines how historic and current practices in the field, laboratory, and collections interplay, and how the scientific community interprets these results in the literature. He also studies how such events foster an evolution of best practices, policy, and law, and he advocates for fossils on public lands. This museum research and field work have taken him to five continents and 36 U.S. states. Brown is an active member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections, and is the founder of the Association for Materials and Methods in Paleontology.