Author: Craig Hlavaty

Now through the end of May 2021, the Houston Museum of Natural Science has partnered up with the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center to become a pop-up blood donation destination. Although not all of us may feel comfortable with donating our bodies to sci…

The Houston Museum of Natural Science is always a magical place during the holiday season, and we’re not just saying that because, you know, we work here. There’s pretty lights all over, fragrant Christmas trees in the Grand Hall, and Trains Over Texas…

The force of nature known as Nicole Temple is responsible for so many of the experiences that make the Houston Museum of Natural Science a wonderland of weird and wonderful. A member of the HMNS family since 1997, she has worked or volunteered con…

If you’ve gazed with wide-eyed wonder at the museum’s Frensley-Graham Hall of African Wildlife and the adjacent Farish Hall of Texas Wildlife, you can thank curator Dr. Dan Brooks for his loving attention to detail.  Since 1999 he’s been an integral pa…

Part of the dynamic and hands-on team that keeps the Cockrell Butterfly Center humming and fluttering with life on a daily basis, horticulturist-slash-entomologist Theresa Lancaster has a very important role on the front lines inside our butterfly sanc…

If you have visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science extensively over the past decade, you have more than likely found yourself captivated by James E. Washington III, our resident dinosaur and mineral expert. Blessed with a boundless love of learn…

Ever since she was a little girl, Tina Petway has been enthralled with shells. Living along the Texas Gulf Coast, it just comes naturally to many of us.  The Houston native, now the associate curator of the George W. Strake Hall of Malacology at the Ho…

Whether you need a quick explainer on a key turning point in the history of the Mayan civilization, the New Orleans Saints’ past playoff woes or the subtleties between seasons of “The Simpsons”, there is no person better equipped at the Houston Museum …

Sick of watching the entire run of “The Office” for the twentieth time? Already knocked out that crucial rewatch of HBO’s “Game of Thrones”? Have you grown tired of your kids playing the same YouTube videos of toys you can’t afford right now being unbo…

Down a residential street in Montrose, canopied by trees that would be right at home in Middle Earth and surrounded by million-dollar houses, you will find Patti Thompson’s thriving front yard butterfly garden. It’s grown to be a neighborhood landmark,…