Dr. Pedro M. P. Raposo joined the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in May 2022 as the Martha Hamilton and I. Wistar Morris III Executive Director of Library & Archives. The Academy was founded in 1812 and became a Drexel affiliate in 2011. It’s Library & Archives constitutes one of the most complete repositories of literature in the natural sciences in the United States, while being unique in representing how this field first gained an institutional footing in the country; in documenting the activities of the longest operating natural history museum of the Americas; and in holding records crucial for understanding the development and consolidation of watershed ecology as a subfield of environmental science. It complements the Academy’s collections of c. 19 million specimens, serving a global research community.
Raposo’s leadership of Library & Archives has focused on transforming it into a dynamic hub of research and learning grounded on newly developed collecting and collections management policies; streamlined acquisitions, cataloging, and access processes; and strengthened collaboration with other Academy departments, the Drexel community, and organizations such as the Philadelphia Area Consortium for Special Collections Libraries, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine.
Raposo actively supports and promotes the use of collections in teaching and learning by faculty and students from across the various Drexel colleges and units, while maintaining a close collaboration with the Department of History, where he is Invited Professor for the History of Science. This collaboration has advanced innovative ways of teaching the history of the natural and environmental sciences through the combined use of the Academy’s rare books, archives, and specimen collections. It has also been pivotal in creating History/Library & Archives co-op opportunities; in running the SPECIMEN Reading Group, which discusses groundbreaking scholarship in the history of the natural sciences around related collections materials; and in setting a foundation for the Academy Oral Histories Program.
Raposo has played a key role in crafting and implementing a strategy for digital collections and access at the Academy, having formed and led its Biodiversity Data Group and steered the Digital Collections Infrastructure signature initiative. The latter establishes a conceptual and technical framework for advancing a more accessible, impactful, inclusive, and equitable stewardship and activation of the Academy’s collections. Raposo is also committed to advancing innovative and inclusive ways of promoting public engagement with collections at the Academy through museum exhibitions and programs.
He represented the Academy in the Drexel University Research Council and is currently the Drexel University representative in the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (CHSTM), an organization that brings together institutions with significant collections in offering research fellowship opportunities while advancing historical perspectives on pressing contemporary issues and providing a platform for public engagement with science, technology, and medicine.
Raposo is a founding member of the CALM – Collections, Archives, Libraries, and Museum caucus of the History of Science Society (HSS), and a member of the editorial boards of Nuncius - Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science and Cahiers François Viète.
Raposo holds a degree in Biology and Geology with a specialization in education from the University of Lisbon, Portugal; a Master’s Degree in History and Philosophy of Science from the same university; and a doctorate in history of science from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, where he was awarded the Magellan Prize for his doctoral project on the history of astronomical observatories in 19th-century Europe.
Before joining the Academy, Raposo was an education officer at the Astronomical Observatory of Lisbon (now part of the Museums of the University of Lisbon); a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the University of Lisbon; a visiting scholar at the Max Planck institute for the History of Science in Berlin; and Curator and Director of Collections at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, where he was responsible for the Planetarium's renowned collections of rare books, scientific instruments, and archives. The Adler’s exhibition 'What is a Planet?', in which he served as curatorial lead, was awarded the 2016 Great Exhibitions Prize of the British Society for the History of Science.
Raposo is an avid vinyl record collector and in his free time he likes to play the guitar and go to concerts. He lives in central Philadelphia with his wife Sara, a fellow museum professional and enthusiast.