Director, Collections Center
Gantz Family Collections Center
William Stanley The Field Museum mourns the passing of William Stanley, who passed away on October 6, 2015. Bill was the Director of the Gantz Family Collections Center, and began work at the Museum in 1989. Trustees, staff, and volunteers of The Field Museum send their deepest condolences to the family of Bill Stanley and mourn the loss of their colleague and friend. On November 6, 2015, The Field Museum hosted a memorial service to honor and celebrate Bill's life and work (recording available).
William Stanley The Field Museum mourns the passing of William Stanley, who passed away on October 6, 2015. Bill was the Director of the Gantz Family Collections Center, and began work at the Museum in 1989.
Trustees, staff, and volunteers of The Field Museum send their deepest condolences to the family of Bill Stanley and mourn the loss of their colleague and friend.
On November 6, 2015, The Field Museum hosted a memorial service to honor and celebrate Bill's life and work (recording available).
Bill Stanley studied the natural history, biogeography, taxonomy and evolution of mammals of eastern Africa, with emphasis on faunas of montane areas within Tanzania. This long-term program involved systematic faunal surveys of shrews and rodents in almost every montane unit within Tanzania, including Mahale Mountains, each of the Eastern Arc Mountains, Southern Highlands including Mt. Rungwe and the Livingstone Mountains and Kilimanjaro, Meru and Ngorongoro of the Northern Highlands. Several new species of shrews and rodents were described as a result, and initial investigations of the biogeography of these faunas have been published.
Other groups Stanley researched include bats, particularly on islands off the Tanzanian coast, and primates, particularly Rungwecebus kipunji, which he studied with Tim Davenport, Sophy Machaga, Noah Mpunga, Link Olson and Eric Sargis. A major emphasis has been the creation and maintenance of a bilingual (English and Kiswahili) website to aid Tanzanian researchers in identification of and education about Tanzanian mammals. The site can be found at www.fieldmuseum.org/tanzania.