At Herbaria, a new career blossoms
Careful not to disturb her colleagues, Danielle Hanrahan leads a visitor through winding stacks of storage containers housing hundreds of thousands of plant specimens. As the newest curatorial assistant at the Harvard University Herbaria (HUH), she’s still a bit deferential to the staff’s old hands. But Hanrahan isn’t a recent college graduate in her first job, or even a newcomer to Harvard. Rather, as she tells two co-workers in an apology for a reporter’s unplanned interruption, hers is a tale of starting over. “I’m part of a story about old people making a comeback,” she says with a self-deprecating shrug. Going from head of exhibition design and installation at the Harvard Art Museums to a curatorial assistant at an herbarium — from handling the works of major artists to carefully preserving and cataloging humble leaves and twigs — might seem an unusual move. But landing a job at the Herbaria allowed Hanrahan, a...