Larry St. Clair, director of the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum at Brigham Young University, has announced the appointment of Leigh A. Johnson as associate director for research and collections effective Jan. 3, 2012. 

Johnson replaces Jack Sites, who has served as associate director of the museum for the last five and a half years and who will continue as will continue as curator of the museum's reptile and amphibian collection. 

Johnson will now assume responsibility for the research and collections-related functions of the museum. For the last five years, he has served as curator of the herbarium (vascular plant collection), an assignment he will retain. He has also provided effective leadership for the herbarium’s databasing and digitization projects, a model for the museum’s other research collections.  Johnson is a faculty member in the Department of Biology at BYU.

During his tenure as associate director, Sites provided remarkable leadership and direction for the museum’s research efforts as well as curation of the museum’s research collections.  He was also instrumental in the museum’s successful reaccreditation process.

For more information, contact Patty Jones at 801-422-5053or visit mlbean.byu.edu.