Dr. Jonathan Hendricks
Robert & Sally Manegold Associate Research Curator of Paleontology
HendricksJ@mpm.edu
Dr. Jonathan R. Hendricks is the Robert & Sally Manegold Associate Research Curator of Paleontology at the Milwaukee Public Museum. Jon received his B.S. in Geology and Zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999 and his Ph.D. in paleontology at Cornell University in 2005. Prior to arriving at the MPM in September 2024, Jon was Associate Professor of Geology at San Jose State University in California and Associate Director of Science Communication at the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, New York. Jon’s research focuses on the fossil record and evolutionary history of mollusks (snails and clams) from the southeastern United States and Caribbean over the past 10 million years.
Patricia Coorough Burke
Robert & Sally Manegold Curator of Geological Collections
coorough@mpm.edu
Patricia Coorough Burke's fields of study include Early Paleozoic fossil communities focusing on extinction events. She holds a BS in Biological Sciences, an MS in Geological Sciences, and certifications in science education, all from UW-Milwaukee, where she is an adjunct faculty member. As Curator of the MPM's geological collections, she manages more than a million specimens across the disciplines of invertebrate and vertebrate paleontology, paleobotany, petrology, and mineralogy.
Coorough Burke has spearheaded the effort to transfer the Geology collections records from their original catalog books to a digital format to make them globally accessible. Throughout the past decade, she has been awarded three Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grants totaling $767,000 to support the digitization of the Silurian, Ordovician, and Devonian fossil collections at MPM and the Field Museum of Natural History.
Her most recent publications include an article published by the Geological Society of London entitled “Mazon Creek Fossils Brought to You by Coal, Concretions, and Collectors” (Geological Society, London, Special Publications, Volume 543) as well as a chapter entitled "Museums at the Intersection of Science and Citizen: An Example from a Silurian Reef" in Museums at the Forefront of History, a Geological Society of America publication.
Coorough Burke is currently serving as Chair of the Geological Society of America’s History and Philosophy of Geology Division.
Coorough Burke retired in October 2024.
Emeritus Curators
Dr. Peter Sheehan
Curator Emeritus - Geology
sheehan@mpm.edu
Active research projects include field-based studies of Ordovician and Silurian Brachiopods and their synecologic associations, ecology of extinction events and radiations, especially the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE), the End-Ordovician extinction and subsequent recovery, the physical effects of the Cretaceous/Paleogeone (K/T).
Adjunct Curators
Dr. Stephen Dornbos - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Dr. Margaret Fraiser - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Dr. Mark Harris - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Dr. Gary Rosenberg - Emeritus, Indiana University-Purdue University (IUPUI)
Dr. Rex Alan Hanger - University of Wisconsin-Whitewater