Daniel Lewis is the Chief Curator of Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, a post he has held since 2010. Dr. Lewis is responsible for the supervision, management and overall direction of the Manuscripts Department, its 17 full-time employees, and its seven linear miles of manuscript holdings spanning more than a thousand years. He is also the Dibner Senior Curator for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, overseeing the Huntington’s collections in those areas. He has broad oversight over both printed and manuscript materials in the Huntington’s history of science collections generally, including the 67,000-volume Burndy Library.
Prior to coming to the Huntington in 1997, Dr. Lewis was the Corporate Archivist for the Los Angeles Times. He is also currently a Research Associate Professor at Claremont Graduate University, where he has taught in the Archival Studies program in the History Department since 2005. He also serves on the faculty at the University of Southern California, where he as taught classes in the Biology Department as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, and in the History Department, as an Adjunct Associate Professor of History. He also served on the Board of the Society of California Archivists between 2002 and 2007, and as the organization’s President in 2006-2007.
In 2008 Dr. Lewis mounted a permanent exhibit at the Huntington, “Beautiful Science: Ideas that Changed the World.” In 2009, it won the American Association of Museums’ Grand Prize, for Excellence in Exhibitions, as the best exhibit in America.
Dr. Lewis has also published two scholarly books. His most recent book is forthcoming from Yale University Press in April: The Feathery Tribe: Robert Ridgway and the Modern Study of Birds (http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300175523). He has just started his most current book project – an environmental history of Hawaiian birds, told in just five species. He says that someone has to go to Hawaii to do research, just to keep their archivists busy, so he’s glad to help out.
Dr. Lewis received his B.A. in English and Writing from the University of Redlands, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Riverside. He is a native of Hawaii, born and raised on the Big Island.