Edhat StaffSource: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
Jonathan Hoffman, Ph.D. has joined the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History’s Vertebrate Department as the new Dibblee Collection Manager of Earth Science, where he will curate and build the Museum’s geology and paleontology collections at its Mission Creek campus. 
Hoffman grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and completed his Ph.D. in Geology at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. He earned his B.A. in Geology at Occidental College and a Master’s degree in Geology at the University of Florida. His research has focused on the use of fossil teeth as paleoecological tools. His work has also involved looking at modern analogues. He has conducted experimental feeding trials with sheep and studied bison and deer in Utah, Kansas, and Catalina Island and fieldwork throughout the United States.
This position is made possible by the Museum’s Endowment for Earth Sciences which was created in 2005 from a bequest by Thomas Wilson Dibblee. A great-great-grandson of the first Comandante of the Presidio of Santa Barbara Jose de la Guerra. Dibblee studied geology at Stanford University. He personally walked nearly every square inch of Southern California, personally mapping nearly one-fourth of the state. In 2001, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History partnered with Dibblee to publish and preserve his extraordinary geological maps, as well as designating his estate to establish a chair of geology at the Museum.
Beyond exhibitions, the Museum offers science education programs for adults and children, preserves a collection of more than three million specimens and artifacts, and maintains ongoing scientific research. The Museum’s mission is to inspire a thirst for discovery and a passion for the natural world.
