Nicholas Wee

Dr Nicholas Wee is the Collection Manager for the Sessile Marine Invertebrate (SMI) collection at Queensland Museum.

Nicholas joined Queensland Museum in April 2021 as an intern via a placement as part of his doctoral studies at The University of Queensland. At the museum he has taken on various roles, predominantly dealing with the care and maintenance of biological specimens housed within the museum collections.

Nicholas’s PhD studies focused on a family of digenean trematodes (parasitic flatworms), the Monorchiidae, that, despite infecting a wide range of marine fishes elsewhere in the world, were highly understudied in Australia. His research on these parasites in Australian fishes revealed a rich fauna that was yet to be formally described. Nicholas’s work focused on the taxonomy, systematics, and life cycles of these parasites, and he has since described 19 species.

While Nicholas still harbours a great interest in marine trematodes, through working with the SMI collection, he has now also developed a passion for sessile marine invertebrates. Nicholas has been involved with the registration and databasing of the collection, maintenance of the collection – both spirit and dry sections, and specimen preparation and photography for research.

Projects

• Maintenance and databasing of the Sessile Marine Invertebrate collection.