Kris Helgen

Professor Kristofer M. Helgen is Chief Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI), as of June 2020. As Chief Scientist and Director, he is responsible for the AMRI team of more than 80 staff, including research scientists, collection scientists, collection officers and more than 100 associates, fellows and students, who research and explore the natural world.

Helgen was most recently Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Adelaide. He has focused his research primarily on fieldwork with living animals and research in museum collections to document the richness of life, understand global change, and contribute to important problems in biomedicine. Originally from Minnesota, Helgen gained his undergraduate degree in Biology at Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Zoology as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Adelaide. From 2008-2017 he served as Curator-in-Charge of Mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.