John Healy

Dr John Healy is Curator of Molluscs, Biodiversity Program at  Queensland Museum and has been actively involved with research on molluscs (malacology) since 1979 when he commenced his honours studies on mudwhelks and sand creeper snails from Moreton Bay.

John has contributed numerous papers to scientific journals and co-authored several publications on Australian molluscs with the late Dr Kevin Lamprell, including Bivalves of Australia Volume 2. and the first monograph on the Australian scaphopod (tusk-shell) molluscs. He has participated as curator in exhibitions as diverse as the life and work of Charles Darwin, the Deep Oceans and Egyptian mummies.

He has held fellowships at The University of Queensland (including an ARC Senior Research Fellowship), The University of Sydney and Queensland Museum and in addition worked both as lecturer and scientific consultant. He is an honorary associate of both the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago) and The University of Queensland.

Areas of Expertise

Identification of Australian and foreign molluscs, especially marine.

Cell ultrastructure especially in relation to spermatozoa and spermatogenesis in molluscs

Projects

Current projects

• Molluscan diversity within Moreton Bay (principally bivalves and gastropods).
• Historical aspects of the molluscan dry shell collection of Queensland Museum.
• Sperm and spermatogenic ultrastructure and their taxonomic and phylogenetic importance in marine bivalve molluscs (as part of the international collaborative Tree of Life Project funded by the National Science Foundation, USA, through the Field Museum, Chicago).
• Taxonomy and evolutionary relationships in volute marine snails.
• Sperm ultrastructure, taxonomy and evolutionary relationships in vermetid (worm) snails.
• Regulation of wild harvesting of marine molluscs in southeast Queensland (in particular that of the Moreton Bay region).