Shannon Hackett

Here's how to reach me.

• 312.665.7729 (office)
• 312.665.7754 (fax)
• 312.665.7457 (DNA Discovery Center and Pritzker Lab)

I grew up in a small town in British Columbia, Canada, always feeling like the square peg in a round hole. I knew I was interested in the natural world, but didn’t know what that meant or what to do about it. My career counseling advice was--you are too smart to be a nurse, you should be a doctor. So, that’s what I went to do. It was a chance event, a undergraduate course on the Natural History of Vertebrates of British Columbia at the University of Victoria, that led me to birdwatching, and from there to working in the Royal British Columbia Museum and ultimately to graduate school in Louisiana (Geaux Tigers), a postdoctoral stint in New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, and then to the best job in the World, Curator of Birds at the Field Museum of Natural History. I didn’t find scientific role models in my community, and that’s why the DNA Discovery Center is so important to me. Every day we have the chance to let people know what we do and what nontraditional careers are available to young people interested in science. As is often the case for women in science, I am married to a man in science. My husband, John Bates, is the other Curator of Birds at Field Museum (you can see a profile under Notes in the July section of the DNA Discovery Center’s facebook page). We have a teenage son, who love...