Our Research
This page details the research interests and activities of the Museum staff. If you wish to carry out research in a particular area of the collections or other activities of the Museum, please contact the relevant staff member.
Academic Profiles and Interests
Jenny Discombe, Conservator
Jenny trained in Conservation at Lincoln College of Art and Design and joined the Museum's Conservation team in 1999.
Jenny primarily assisted with the preparation and conservation of objects for the Geology, Anthropology, Archery and Numismatics Galleries. Member of UKIC Ethnography section.
Andrew Gray, Curator of Herpetology
Andrews' specialist knowledge in Neotropical Herpetology has gained him a wide range of experience working in the field, especially in Amazonian South America, extensively in Central America, and also in tropical Queensland, Australia. To date, he has conducted over 20 research expeditions. to some of the remotest areas. He has also gained experience working with the media, directly presenting his subject on television and acting as a main scientific field advisor for several wildlife documentaries, including the BBC series Planet Earth. His main research interests focus on investigating unusual adaptations and reproduction in tropical hylid treefrogs, through combining field studies with captive observations. All the research he conducts is completely non-invasive and is aimed at gaining a fuller understanding of the species concerned - so that the knowledge can be used to help conserve them.
Dr Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and the Sudan
Campbell Price took up his post as Curator of Egypt and the Sudan at The Manchester Museum in November 2011. Campbell gained his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D in Egyptology at Liverpool University’s School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, where he is an Honorary Research Fellow. He completed his AHRC-funded Ph.D on the function of private temple statues in Late Period Egypt, and maintains research interests in both Egyptian sculpture and aspects of culture during the First Millennium BC. Campbell is the Director of the Saqqara Geophysical Survey Project, which uses non-invasive geophysical techniques to map sub-surface structures at one of the most significant religious sites in Pharaonic Egypt. Campbell regularly lectures around the UK. Visit Campbell's Ancient Egypt Blog
Wendy Hodkinson, Honorary Curator of Archery
An archer and specialist on the history of archery, particularly in Elizabethan and Victorian times. She is an archery advisor to radio, TV and film companies and has appeared in their productions. She helps researchers, writes and publishes, and gives talks to schools and learned groups. She is a past Junior Champion, a Master Flight Shot and former National Ladies Flight Champion. She received the Les Higgins Award for Services to Civil Service Archery in 1990, and the Bronze Medal from the Nobele Ordre van de Papegay in 1995; and won the Lieutenancy of the Ilkley Arrow society in 1995. She is an active member of the British Long-Bow Society and the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, a Vice President of the Civil Service Archery Association and is the North West Archery Organiser of the Civil Service Sports Council; a member of the Royal Toxophilite Society, and holds honorary membership of the North Cheshire Bowmen, Eccles Archery Club, and of the Archery Collectors Guild.
Dr Dmitri Logunov, Curator of Arthropods
A specialist on the taxonomy and systematics of spiders, in particularly, of the families Saltcidae, Thomisidae and Philodromidae, with his main results being published to date in over 100 papers and three books. He is an experienced field worker, who has undertaken numerous field trips for collecting spiders and insects to remote regions of Siberia, Far East and Central Asia. His current interests include a complete taxonomic revision of the Palaearctic Salticidae, a comparative morphology of the Salticidae copulatory organs and implication of these data into solving problems of salticid relationships, and taxonomic revisions of particular tropical groups of spiders from Australia, South Africa and South America.
Dr Phil Manning, Research Fellow (Palaeontology)
A specialist on dinosaur track formation, preservation and interpretation, he has recently published a major paper on the interpretation of the fossil track record, exploring the unique source of information that tracks offer. He has excavated the remains of dinosaurs and marine reptiles in the British Isles, France, Canada, USA, North Africa and South America (Patagonia). This field work is part of an on-going research programme on the palaeobiogeography of dinosaurs. With Dr Lyell Anderson (National Museums of Scotland) he is also researching the palaeobiology and palaeoecology of eurypterids. With Dr Duncan McIlroy (Sedimentology and Internet Solutions Ltd) he is researching the Mesozoic vertebrate fossil record of Argentina. He is currently developing links betweens museums and universities in Argentina to help in the excavation of a large pliosaur in the Neuquén Basin. Phil is a Research Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, a Council Member (Publicity Officer) of The Palaeontological Association, London and a Council Member of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, York.
Henry McGhie, Head of Collections and Curator of Zoology
Henry is responsible for the direction of the work of the Curatorial Team. He is an Honorary Scientific Associate in the Faculty of Life Sciences at The University of Manchester, Assistant Chair of the International Council of Museums Collections Care Working Group in Natural History and is on the Advisory Board of the University of Oslo Museum Studies MA. His background is as a bird ecologist and conservationist, publishing mainly on upland birds and their management, historical changes in animal persecution, and owl ecology. He is also very interested in the history of ornithology and has written a number of articles on this; he is preparing a biography of Henry Dresser, a prominent collector (and donor to the Museum). He is a participant and adviser to the project ‘Animals as Objects and Animals as Signs’, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. His current teaching includes supervision on a research skills module to the South of France, supervising final year student projects in the Faculty of Life Sciences (FLS), lecturing on the course Evolution of Animals in FLS, and on the Geography of Life in the School of Geography. He is interested in all aspects of the management and development of collections with an aim to maximizing the public benefit that can be derived from them.
Dr John Prag, Professor Emeritus of Archaeological Studies
A Classical archaeologist by training and inclination, with numerous authored or edited books and articles to his name, John Prag has worked in Britain, Greece, Italy, Turkey and Libya. After 35 years caring for the Museum's archaeological collections his research interests extend over a wide range of disciplines. He is working on a book on Neutron Activation Analysis of Greek Black-Glazed Pottery (with Greek colleagues), and is collaborating with Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories on the application of Synchrotron Radiation to ancient ceramics and metalwork. He led the team that pioneered the application of facial reconstruction to archaeological problems, and is now studying the origins of western portraiture. He is working with the Department of Biomolecular Sciences to investigate kinship relationships and thus dynastic succession in Bronze Age Greece through ancient DNA. Since 1996 Dr Prag has been co-ordinator of the multidisciplinary Alderley Edge Landscape Project (AELP), a joint venture with the National Trust with whose publication he is currently pre-occupied; this spawned the Alderley Edge Landscape Project - Heritage and Education Resource (AELPHER), a web-based project with Cheshire Education which is both learning resource and public route into the Alderley archive ( www.alderleyedge.man.ac.uk ). With the School of Art History and Archaeology he established the Alderley Sandhills Project in 2003, a community-linked excavation combining historical archaeology, written, pictorial and oral records. Responsible for the Museum's local archaeology, he maintains contact with the University Field Archaeology Unit, Portable Antiquities legislation, and is curating the Manchester leg of the British Museum's partnership "Buried Treasure" exhibition. Dr Prag serves on the Councils of the British School at Athens and the Society for Libyan Studies, and the Advisory Board of the Warburg Institute, University of London. He acts as expert advisor to the DCMS Review Committee for the Export of Works of Art.
Kate Sherburn, Curatorial Assistant - Natural Sciences
Kate works with the Zoology and Palaeontology collections at the Museum. She is particularly interested in aquatic biology, especially sharks. She loves animals and travels all over the work to see them in their natural environment.
Keith Sugden, Curator of Numismatics
Although he has published on topics as diverse as financial control in the ancient word, Anglo-Saxon coins, seventeenth-century English tokens and modern medal design, he specializes in Greek and Roman coinage, and his research and teaching interests tend to reflect this. He keeps in touch with the wider numismatic community in the UK through a long-term involvement with the British Association of Numismatic Societies (he is an Honorary Vice President, and regularly gives papers to the Association's conferences), and his role as Trustee and Secretary to the UK Numismatic Trust (a grant-awarding body that supports British-based numismatic research and research in the field of British numismatics) brings him into regular contact with other scholars and active academic projects.
Laurence Cook, Honorary Research Assosicate
Prof. Laurence M. Cook is concerned with the way in which the genetic constitution of individuals influences and is moulded by evolutionary processes. At the population level he is studying maintenance of polymorphism in snails and selection acting on industrial melanic moths. At the community level an investigation of speciation in the land mollusc fauna of Madeira is in progress.