Hazel Richards
Curatorial Research Assistant
Palaeontology
Hazel is a curatorial research assistant, which means she helps to provide the scientific knowledge and research behind Museums Victoria exhibitions.
As an anatomist, she specialises in exploring the inner workings of animals, both living and extinct. Her current PhD research uses 3D techniques to understand how Australia’s fossil megafauna lived and moved, investigating their anatomy for clues to why they disappeared.
Hazel has always been fascinated by big creatures—as a child she fell in love with the Disney classic Fantasia and watched the scenes of dinosaurs over and over. To six-year-old Hazel it made perfect sense these huge and mysterious animals would feature alongside unicorns, fairies and even dancing mushrooms. To her they were all mythical creatures from magnificent lost worlds.
As she grew, Hazel came to understand the idea of extinction, and the dinosaurs in her imagination became more real, yet no less mysterious.
Today she’s excited to play a part in recreating the experience of the Cretaceous period so everyone can share the thrill of inhabiting a lost world.
