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Parasitology Collection - Good News

The Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology in the University of Nebraska State Museum is pleased to announce that a new collection manager for Parasitology has been hired with a starting date of May 1, 2004. F. Agustín Jiménez-Ruiz, an expert in the systematics of nematodes (especially the Heterakoidea), has been given the position having been chosen from a large and very competitive field of candidates. Agustín received his undergraduate degree from U.N.A.M. (Mexico) and also conducted his masters degree research at the Laboratorio de Helmintología, Instituto de Biología, U.N.A.M., Mexico, Mr. Jiménez-Ruiz will finish his Ph.D. in Parasitology here in the Manter Laboratory at UNL at the end of the summer semester, 2004.

The Manter Laboratory (HWML) holds the 2nd largest collection of metazoan parasites in the western hemisphere and provides training in parasite taxonomy, systematics, and biodiversity through field work, loans, and onsite study of specimens in the collections. The collection data are fully on-line (http://hwml.unl.edu) and continual improvements are being made to the quality of data in the databases. The HWML holds a large collection of digenetic trematodes from marine teleost fishes (collected by Harold Manter) from the tropical Pacific Ocean. Also held is one of the most complete assemblage of ecto- and endoparasites from mammals from the central Neotropics (mostly from Bolivia). The HWML is actively recruiting students through the School of Biological Sciences at UNL and students and research associates of the lab are engaged in local, national, and international research projects focusing on taxonomy, systematics, phylogenetics, and ecology of host-parasite systems. One of the primary missions of the HWML is to actively train new systematists in the field of parasitology and parasite biodiversity.