Dr. Joel Gibson

Curator of Entomology

I have been the curator of the Entomology Collection since the winter of 2016. My childhood and adolescence was spent among the Great Lakes and forests of southern Ontario. After completing degrees in wildlife biology and insect systematics, I pursued a teaching degree and a brief career as a high school teacher. My return to research (and insects) included a doctorate degree and a stint at the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes in Ottawa. Following positions in scientific project management and DNA-based wetland biodiversity assessment, I took on the curatorship here in Victoria.

Throughout my career, I have had the chance to study and collect insects in Hawaii, northern California, Argentina, Costa Rica, Thailand, and the Smoky Mountains on the border of Tennessee. I have visited and worked in museums and insect collections in San Francisco, Chicago, Paris, Toronto and Montreal. I especially love the overlap of public outreach, science education and cutting edge collection-based research that takes place at large, publicly-funded museums. In my new home of BC, I am enjoying the wide variety of unique habitats that are close at hand. I look forward to studying the insects that inhabit the shore lines, forests, grasslands, mountain tops and urban spaces of British Columbia.

Education

BSc, University of Guelph; MSc, Iowa State University

BEd, OISE/University of Toronto; PhD, Carleton University

Areas of Interest

Insect systematics, especially Diptera (flies)

Evolution and phylogenetics

DNA sequencing and analysis

Biogeography

Science education

Ecological interactions, especially parasitoids; taxonomy

Contact Dr. Joel Gibson

Email: jgibson@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca

Latest Articles

Diptera of Canada

February 5, 2019 2:25 pm

Jade Savage¹, Art Borkent³, Fenja Brodo¹¹, Jeffey M. Cumming², Gregory Curler⁴, Douglas C. Currie⁵, Jeremy R. deWaard⁶, Joel F. Gibson³, Martin Hauser⁷, Louis Laplante⁸, Owen […]

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