Interested in learning about scientific discoveries directly from scientists? Scientific research staff and invited speakers discuss their latest findings on a wide variety of scientific topics during the free R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar Series at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

During the next Science Seminar, Dr. Kathleen S. Murphy – Professor of History and History Department Chair at California Polytechnic State University in California – will reveal the entwined histories of Enlightenment science and the transatlantic slave trade. Dr. Murphy argues that British naturalists exploited the routes and infrastructure of the eighteenth-century transatlantic slave trade in order to acquire specimens that otherwise would have been difficult or impossible for them to collect. The talk focuses on the example of Dr. John Burnet, a slave ship surgeon who collected specimens on board the slave ship Wiltshire and subsequently as an employee of a slaving company in Spanish America.

Natural History & the British Slave Trade will be presented virtually on Monday, January 11 at 12:00 pm. For more information, or to reserve your free spot, visit the Moriarty Science Seminar Series event page.