Dr. Ben Nicholas is the new Collection Manager for the Fish division at U-M’s Museum of Zoology. In his role, Ben oversees the more than 3.59 million specimens in the collection – including a very unusual, two-headed trout! – and is continuing to expand tissue samples as an essential resource for researchers around the world.


Congrats on the new role! Can you share your path to becoming a collection manager?

Thanks! I’ve actually worked in collections since undergrad. I majored in Fisheries and Wildlife Science at Oregon State University, and through an honors research project, I got involved in fish collections early on. I loved it—using specimens to study cryptic speciation and traveling to different museums helped me understand how collections operate.


When I came to U-M for grad school, I was excited to continue that work of research and outreach. I got to know the collection well through both research and teaching. So when this job opened up, it felt like a natural transition—from using the collection for my own work to helping others use it and managing it more broadly.


Are there big goals you're focusing on as you settle in?

One of my long-term goals is growing our Neotropical collection—especially our tissue samples. The area has really expanded under Dr. Hernán López-Fernández, Curator of Fishes, and I’d love to continue to grow it. Our specimens are an essential resource for researchers who might not have access to field sites in South America.

Digitization is a big focus, too. We have all kinds of valuable data—X-rays, field photos, specimen notes—that aren’t easily accessible. I’d love to build out searchable databases so researchers can access this kind of “extended specimen” data more easily.

What's new in the fish collection these days?

So much! We’re finishing up cataloging specimens from a Peru trip and adding samples from a recent Guyana expedition. We’re also working through historical collections that are meaningful because they contain specimens that are extremely rare, with only a handful known worldwide.


What about taxonomy? How do you keep the collection up to date?

It’s tricky. Our collection is massive, so we usually only make large-scale updates when taxonomic changes are well-established. We rely on expert visitors to help so it's a collaborative effort.


Do you have a favorite specimen?

Definitely! We have a two-headed trout that was originally in the teaching collection. We CT- and dice-scanned it. It has two fully formed heads, stomachs, and it was gravid! We also have irreplaceable specimens like extinct Chinese paddlefish and sturgeon from the former USSR. Those are incredible historical records that will never be collected again.


Who or what inspires you in science right now?

I really admire scientists doing field-based natural history—collecting diet data, habitat use, behavioral observations. That work often gets overshadowed by genomics and big-data approaches, but it’s essential. For example, in my own dissertation, I struggled to find diet data for many South American species—even though they’re “well-studied.” That kind of foundational data is still very much needed.