Curators :

Oskars Lusis (1948-1981)

Oskars was a highly accomplished taxidermist and a popular member of the teaching staff, with many records of students calling him a ‘fountain of knowledge’ and ‘well loved’. 

Prior to coming to Sheffield, Oskars had been a curator at the Riga Zoo in Latvia then became a displaced person in Germany following WWII. 

He was appointed to a technical staff post at the University in 1947, then appointed to an academic post in 1953 with the title Curator of the Alfred Denny Museum. In 1963 he was made a Lecturer in Zoology with the additional title of Honorary Curator of the Alfred Denny Museum. 

Oskars worked hard to maintain a 'teaching collection' as funding for the museum became limited and the university refused to pay for it's previous space in firth court. This collected consisted of life history jars, skeletons, anatomical dissections and other teaching resources which can still be found in the museum today. He created many new displays and teaching material for the museum as well, most notably his double specimens: a combination of skeleton and taxidermy.

Tim Birkhead (1980s-2019)

Professor Tim Birkhead took up position as lecturer at the University of Sheffield in 1976, becoming Professor of Behavioural Ecology, in 1992.

Nationally and internationally, Tim Birkhead is known both for his excellent science communicator and his passion for ornithology, with a reputation as a leading expert in the field, especially regarding bird mating systems and reproduction. 

Birkhead was responsible for re-opening the museum to the public during the 2012 Festival of the Mind. Refurbishing displays, checking species were correctly classified, organising new items and cataloguing an impressive collection of bird eggs.

Public Engagement Officer: 

Nicola Hemmings: (2012-2017)

Dr Nicola Hemmings was lead coordinator of the Alfred Denny Museum's Public Engagement Programme from 2012, when the museum was first opened to the public during The University of Sheffield's Festival of the Mind. She stepped down from the role when she had her first child in 2017.

Highlights from Nicola's time working with the museum include welcoming several thousand visitors to numerous events and tours, welcoming over 1500 local school children to attend 'Be a Scientist for the Day' workshops and 'Young Explorers' clubs, hosting several unique public talks about the museum's history and specimens, and showcasing the museum as one of Sheffield's hidden gems on the popular BBC TV programme Great British Railway Journeys.

Nicola is currently a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield School of Biosciences, studying the reproductive behaviour and physiology of birds and implications for conservation. She still loves using the museum for teaching and recently supervised a Masters project examining the colonial history of its collections.

Digitisation and Communications Placement: 

Kane Dibb (2023-2024)

Kane undertook their placement year as part of a BSc Zoology + Placement year degree in the museum working as a Digitisation and Communications Officer to increase the museum's online presence and reach. Their main work has been creating this website, a process which has involved researching the museum's history, writing up informative pages about the collections, specific specimens and summaries of the different animal groups for educational purposes. Alongside taking lots of photos of the interesting animals on display to share digitally to a wider audience. 

In addition they also led a pilot project to digitise a portion of the University Herbarium and develop a virtual tour of the museum, as well as working alongside volunteers to develop more materials for tours, events and workshops. 

Throughout their time working as a tour guide and volunteer at the Alfred Denny Museum Kane has become passionate about the use of museums in education - both within academic and public settings. Developing a particular interest in the use of digital technology to enhance the accessibility and availability of information. They built this website with the hopes to introduce more people to the museum so viewers can gain a greater appreciation for its past and present history as well as show off the vast diversity of animal life captured by the museum collections.

Following their graduation from Sheffield they have continued to pursue their passion for museums and outreach, acquiring a museum's assistant position at the University of Cambridge Museum of Zoology. 

Curatorial Assistant Placement: 

Alice Butler (2025)

During her placement at the Alfred Denny museum, Alice had a focus on the entomology collections within the museum, including databasing, cleaning, fixing, and re-organising the specimens. Alice largely focused on the Arthur Doncaster collection of lepidoptera, re-organising the butterflies and moths into clearer taxonomic groups, and freeing up more space for other specimens to be displayed. She also assisted with the "Museum's Working towards accreditation" status, by filling in documents that will help the museum move forward in gaining accreditation, and outreach, by packaging specimens for loans and filling out relevant forms such as condition assessments.