Steinhart Aquarium
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 Location within San Francisco County
Location within San Francisco County
Location within San Francisco County
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| Established | 1853 |
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| Location | Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, United States |
| Coordinates | 37°46′12″N 122°27′59″W / 37.7701°N 122.466407°WCoordinates: 37°46′12″N 122°27′59″W / 37.7701°N 122.466407°W |
| Type | Natural history |
| Accreditation |
AAM ASTC |
| Director | Jonathan Foley |
| Architect | Renzo Piano |
| Website | www |
The California Academy of Sciences is a natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 26 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 as a learned society and still carries out a large amount of original research, with exhibits and education becoming significant endeavors of the museum during the 20th century.
Completely rebuilt in 2008, the building covers 400,000 square feet (37,000 square metres) and is among the newest natural history museums in the United States. The primary building in Golden Gate Park reopened on September 27, 2008.
The California Academy of Sciences, California's oldest operating museum and research institution for the natural sciences, is governed by a forty-one member Board of Trustees who are nominated and chosen by the Academy Fellows. The Academy Fellows are, in turn, "[n]ominated by their colleagues and appointed by the Board of Trustees...the Fellows remain members of the Fellowship for life." The Board of Trustees are then responsible for appointing the executive management of the Academy, who in turn are responsible for overseeing the Academy's overall operation and the hiring of its other managers and employees.
The Academy's museum operations are the outward, "public face" of the Academy of Sciences and the educational aspects of the exhibits and public outreach programs are managed in a division called "Public Engagement and Education" (see below, Public Education). Underlying these operations is a staff of hundreds of employees who operate the day-to-day functions without which the Academy could not offer its programs. The operations branch of the Academy is divided into three departments: Building Operations, Guest Operations, and IT Services.
Besides its world-renowned function as source of public science education through its museum, the California Academy of Sciences also operates the prestigious Institute for Biodiversity Science and Sustainability (IBSS) as its research arm, contributing some of the world's most important research in the fields of taxonomy, phylogenetics, and biodiversity studies. Although one aspect of the IBSS is available for view by museum patrons at the science "project lab" exhibit, most of the research happens in laboratories and facilities "behind the scenes" and not observable by the public. In fact, unbeknownst to most patrons, research and administrative facilities occupy nearly 50% of the Academy's physical structure.
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