Publications
Research is one of the fundamental activities of the Nova Scotia Museum. Museum publications share research about our collection to advance our understanding of the world and encourage research by others. The Museum publishes Books, Curatorial Reports, Infosheets, and Exhibit Research Reports.
Nova Scotia Museum publications are available electronically through an Open Journal System catalogue hosted by Dalhousie University.
Lichens In Nova Scotia: A ‘How-to’ Guide For Beginner Naturalists (Infosheet)
As one of six global hotspots for cool-temperate rainforest lichens, Nova Scotia has much to offer a keen student of natural history from a lichenology perspective. Our province also has a long history of contributions from amateur naturalists and those outside of the traditional academic community.
Nova Scotia Plants
Authors Marian C. Munro, Ruth E. Newell and Nicholas M. Hill provide a comprehensive catalogue of Nova Scotia’s flora. Nova Scotia Plants has been illustrated with GIS-generated distribution maps and full-colour photographs, these colleagues and friends offer a series of identification keys, a glossary, discussion of plant communities and a background to botanical study in the province.
Curatorial Report No. 108
List of Fish found in the Freshwaters of Nova Scotia - A review of Common Names and the taxonomy applied to these species with synonyms used in the literature relating to Nova Scotia, including Mi’kmaw names for fish by Andrew J Hebda
Curators
Lisa Bower
Curator (Registrar) History
Lisa Bower is a museum curator and historian who specializes in material culture studies about Nova Scotian samplers, needlework and 19th century African Nova Scotian schools. Although she works with a range of material culture types and periods Lisa is particularly interested in recouping and preserving the identities of 19th century sampler makers and others who mark stories through thread. Lisa started working at the NSM in 2006 and began working with the cultural history collection composed of over 85,000+ objects across multiple museums since 2013. She holds an M.A. in History from Dalhousie University (2022), where she received the Bowes Prize in History (2021), a B.A. in Anthropology from Saint Mary’s University (1990), and a Collections Management certificate from the University of Victoria (2018). She curated: “Inspired Threads” (Curator) (MNH, 2023/MOI 2024), and “By Her Hand” (Co-curator) (MNH/2023). Lisa’s interest in the decorative arts began at an early age with her grandparents passing along their shared pride and love of antiques. Lisa’s interest in historic needlework derives from her own experience as a life-long stitcher and embroiderer. She has delivered lectures about her research on the Rachel Barrett School sampler (NSM 2018.14.1) to Dalhousie’s Atlantic Canada Material Culture Conference (2025), the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society (2023), and as part of academic lecture series 19th Century Dress and Textiles Reframed (2023) and OrnamentalEmbroidery.com (2021).
Katie Cottreau-Robins
Senior Curator Archaeology
Dr. Katie Cottreau-Robins is our Curator of Archaeology. She loves the hands-on connection to the past that archaeology provides. “With the physical evidence that is collected and studied, you gain insight into the daily lives of people like you and me.” She enjoys learning things that can’t be found in archives or historical documents. Katie earned her PhD from Dalhousie University in 2012. Her dissertation, “A Loyalist Plantation in Nova Scotia, 1784-1800,” is closely connected to her work at the museum. One of the objects found at the plantation dig site is part of this exhibit. Though Katie’s job has many opportunities to explore the wide range of past cultures and experiences represented in Nova Scotia, she continues to have a special interest in uncovering the daily lives of the enslaved in the loyalist era.
Tim Fedak
Senior Curator Geology
In 1997, he received a Nova Scotia Museum Research Grant to prepare a dinosaur recently discovered at the Early Jurassic site on the shores of the Bay of Fundy near Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. Ten years later Dr. Fedak completed his PhD at Dalhousie University, focused on the collection and study of new dinosaurs at the Fundy Geological Museum.
Now as Curator of Geology, Dr. Fedak remains passionate about sharing the value of Nova Scotia’s rich geological history. The history of Nova Scotia geology includes contributions to the foundation of modern geology, from Lyell, Jackson and Alger, Marsh, Schuchert, and other intersections with geologists on both sides of the Atlantic.
Recent Workshops and Presentations
NSIS Talk: Drawing on Science: Mastodons of Nova Scotia
GSA 2020: 200 Years of Nova Scotia Geology
Lyell Notebook #104 - University of Edinburgh blog post
Recent Publications
Brenna Frasier
Senior Curator Zoology
Dr. Brenna Frasier is the Curator of Zoology. From a very young age, Brenna has had a passion for the space where biology and museums collide – a place for wonder for all ages. She obtained both her undergraduate degree and PhD from Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario and later obtained a Professional Specialization Certificate in Collections Management. Brenna is a biologist and molecular ecologist whose research has largely focused on using DNA analysis to examine the history and conservation of species. Her doctoral research examined the impact that 16th century Basque whaling in Labrador had on the North Atlantic right and bowhead whales through the examination of ancient DNA. She has studied a wide variety of species ranging from bats to horses, with a primary focus on marine mammals. Most recently, she has been working on a collaborative project examining the use of marine mammals in Norse Age sites around the North Atlantic. She is always open to facilitating projects that find unique ways to bring together science, nature and natural history objects to facilitate growth, inspiration and connection.
Sean Haughian
Senior Curator Botany
Dr. Haughian is a plant ecologist who has focused his work on forest-dwelling herbs, lichens, mosses, and liverworts. Originally from Edmonton Alberta, he has studied and worked in many Canadian ecosystems including the montane and inland rainforests of British Columbia, the boreal forests and peatlands of northern Alberta, and the Acadian forests and swamps of Atlantic Canada. Dr. Haughian moved to Atlantic Canada (New Brunswick) in 2010 and completed his PhD at the University of New Brunswick in 2016. His current research focuses on conserving at-risk plants and lichens in forest ecosystems, developing new methods to grow lichens and mosses for green infrastructure (like green roofs), and understanding how species distributions relate to climate and other environmental features.
Recent Publication
Amber Laurie
Senior Curator Marine History
Amber Laurie is the Curator of Marine History. Growing up, she was inspired by the stories Second World War veterans told her. That led her to a pursue studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in History and Anthropology. She also did a post-graduate certificate in Museum Management and Curatorship at Fleming College. After graduating, Amber worked at several museums in Ontario including the Museum of Naval History. She is particularly interested in using artifacts to help tell the stories of how the lives of veterans, children, and historically marginalized people were shaped by the sea.
Roger Marsters
Senior Curator History
Roger Marsters is our Curator of History. Like many Nova Scotians, he comes from a long line of shipbuilders and seafarers: toddling gingerly around the cranes and rising hulls of the Halifax Shipyard counts among his earliest memories. A seasoned marine and cultural historian, his doctoral dissertation examines the relation of indigenous maritime knowledge to hydrographic mapping projects during the 18th and 19th centuries. He is fascinated by the immense range of people’s experience with the marine environment—as professional seafarers, recreational boaters, as makers and consumers of culture. “Contact with the sea—physical or imaginative—changes people, impressing them with its openness and power. I aim to make the sea’s transformative influence as widely accessible as I possibly can.”
Katherine Ogden
Curator (Registrar) Natural History
Katherine Ogden is Registrar and Assistant Curator of Natural History. Growing up near Parrsboro, Katherine began collecting at a young age. “I started picking up rocks and shells at about the same age that I discovered pockets to put them in.” Not surprisingly, she was among the first students to work at the Fundy Geological Museum in Parrsboro. She now takes care of the records in our Natural History Collection. But Katherine delights in those days when her job still lets her “play outdoors.”
Vanessa Smith
Curator (Registrar) Archaeology
Vanessa Smith is our Assistant Curator of Archaeology. Vanessa has experience working on a range of archaeological projects around Nova Scotia and Scotland. Additionally, she has worked as an artifact photographer which allowed her to get hands on with material culture from Pre-contact to 19th century industrial sites. After finishing her undergraduate studies in anthropology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, she completed a Masters degree in archaeology at the University of Glasgow. Vanessa also holds a BFA from NSCAD.
Vanessa believes that the collections held by the NSM offer a fascinating and valuable window into the experiences of people in the past, how they lived and interacted with the world around them. She is particularly interested in the lives of women and under-represented groups in early Halifax. While all material culture is of interest, Vanessa has a particular fondness for buttons.
Kirby Ross
Curator (Registrar) Marine History
Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Kirby became passionate about the province’s history at a young age. She completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees in history at Saint Mary’s University. Her research focuses on women’s contributions on the home front during the Second World War, specifically in the shipbuilding industry and entertainment roles. Currently, she is working to complete the Cultural Resource Management program and Collections Management certification virtually through the University of Victoria.
Kirby is proud to hold over ten years of experience working in a variety of roles at community, provincial, and federal museums. She also has spent time working with non-profit historical societies and archives. What she enjoys most about her work is hearing people’s stories and their connections to Nova Scotia’s diverse and riveting history.
Kayla Rudderham
Senior Curator of Mi'kmaw Cultural Heritage
Kayla Rudderham [she/they/nekm] is the Curator of Mi'kmaq Cultural Heritage. Kayla is from Membertou First Nation in Unama'ki, and has an interest in contemporary Mi'kmaw and First Nations art histories, as well as Indigenous curatorial pedagogies and activism. Her curatorial practice is influenced by interconnectivity, radical acts of care, as well as the past, present, and future.
Graduating from NSCAD University’s MAAE program in Museum and Curatorial studies in 2022, Kayla’s thesis focused on improving relationships between Indigenous peoples and colonial institutions. Kayla has an interest in contributing to the elevation, enhancement, and preservation of L’nu art practices as well as encouraging engagement between all communities and their material culture. An artist herself, Kayla explores aspects of Mi’kmaw language reclamation, acts of remembrance, and the impacts of colonialism on the land.
Erika Wilson
Curator of Collections at the Museum of Industry
Erika Wilson is the Curator of Collections at the Nova Scotia Museum of Industry. As a young child, whose parents were both teachers, she greatly enjoyed summer vacations around the Maritimes visiting various historical sites, museums, and antique stores. She developed her father’s love of old things and chose to study History for her undergraduate degree. It was during this time that she realized she could merge her love of History and objects and the stories they told into one passion; a career working in Museums. After attending both the Universities of Toronto and British Columbia for a master’s in museum studies and a master’s in museum education, she was ready to take on the Museum world. She loves how each day at the Museum is different and how she gets to help facilitate the story of work and workers in Nova Scotia through objects. Erika’s love for working with objects both as vehicles for storytelling and the richness and depth they add to Museum exhibitions, has grown exponentially. She loves getting to come to work everyday and complete the tasks necessary to keep the objects safe but also to use the objects to help tell the story of Nova Scotia’s industrial past.