
Melanie Stiassny
- March 8, 2024
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Melanie Stiassny is the Axelrod Research Curator in the Department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and Professor in the museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School. Before joining the AMNH she was an Associate Professor of Biology at Harvard University. Her PhD is from the University of London, and she spent three years as a Royal Society Postdoctoral Fellow in the Netherlands before coming to the USA.
Melanie’s research focus is on the systematics and evolutionary morphology of Afrotropical freshwater fish faunas, and in the course of her ichthyological studies she has described over 50 species new to science. Working together with an international team of research scientists and government agencies current projects center on the poorly documented fishes of central Africa and seek to highlight trends in aquatic biodiversity status and decline which help inform conservation practitioners and governmental agencies develop regional conservation strategies. Key to this is the mentoring of in-country taxonomic expertise, for which an active program is maintained in collaboration with the University of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the University of Marien Ngouabi, Republic of Congo, to promote ichthyological training of Congolese nationals.