The American Museum Of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History, a New York City–based nonprofit research institution, operates as a federal grant recipient delivering scientific research, collections digitization, education, and public engagement programming across life sciences, Earth sciences, and astrophysics to civilian agencies with no set-aside posture. AMNH competes full-and-open across federal funding mechanisms and operates as a prime recipient on 96% of its awards (429 of 448 total awards in the source data) and as a subgrantee on collaborative research initiatives with universities and other research institutions.

AMNH's federal footprint centers on research grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA. NSF represents the dominant funding agency with 163 awards across biological sciences, Earth sciences, astronomy, cyberinfrastructure, and STEM education; NASA's Shared Services Center accounts for 74 awards valued at $25 million combined potential value, predominantly for astrophysics and planetary science research. Recent representative work includes a $974.8 thousand NSF Biological Sciences grant (August 2026) to rehouse and digitize a 350,000-specimen fossil collection donated by Columbia University; a $1,053.8 thousand NSF STEM Education grant (September 2025) investigating serendipity in informal STEM learning within museums; a $704.1 thousand NASA grant (January 2025) for balanced science programming in astrophysics and planetary science; and a $1.5 million NASA grant (July 2023) for planetarium space show development. AMNH also received a $1.25 million NOAA Congressionally Identified Awards grant (September 2024) to develop a Climate Impact Initiative combining action, education, and research. Recent activity shows moderate volatility—22 awards in FY2024, stepping back to 15 in FY2025 and 6 in the first months of FY2026—with 24 awards carrying combined potential value of $2.6 million reaching completion within the next twenty-four months.

AMNH's capability portfolio spans five concrete service areas grounded in its institutional mission. Research infrastructure development delivers large-scale cyberinfrastructure and research support: a $1.038 million NSF Major Research Instrumentation Track 2 award (September 2023) funded acquisition of a 3D X-ray microscope for high-resolution specimen imaging; a $498.2 thousand award (September 2022) for multi-petabyte data storage expansion via Open Storage Network pods connected to the museum's Science DMZ. Collections digitization and access is a dominant theme: awards fund specimen photography, metadata enrichment, optical character recognition-assisted label transcription, and public online database creation for mollusk collections (NSF $433.6 thousand, June 2026), odonata (dragonfly and damselfly) specimens (NSF $358.8 thousand, August 2025), and type bird specimens (NSF $912.1 thousand, November 2024). Field-based paleontological and earth science research includes expeditionary work reconstructing Early Paleogene mammal evolution in Mongolia (NSF $143 thousand, September 2025), investigating mass extinction events (NSF $274.96 thousand, August 2024), and studying the Florida Current through coral proxy records (NSF $585.1 thousand, August 2024). Astrophysical research centers on stellar and galactic phenomena: studies of exoplanet atmospheres through spectral analysis, brown dwarf discovery and characterization, ultra-faint dwarf galaxies and globular clusters, and operation of the Condor Array Telescope in New Mexico through collaborative awards with the State University of New York at Stony Brook. STEM education and workforce development delivers undergraduate and graduate student research experiences—REU sites in Earth science and astrophysics (NSF $57.2 thousand, March 2025; prior award $339.5 thousand, March 2022) and systematics (NSF $598.3 thousand, May 2023)—and mentorship programming including the Science Research and Mentoring Program Consortium conference (NSF, November 2024). Museum education and public engagement work includes serendipity-centered informal learning research, planetarium programming, and field trip experience pilots addressing equity and access.

Customer concentration splits between NSF and NASA. NSF accounts for 163 awards representing roughly 36% of the total award count; NASA's Shared Services Center (the administrative vehicle for all NASA research centers and divisions) carries 74 awards valued at $25 million combined potential value. The top five funding agencies cover 61% of award count. NSF dominates by volume but NASA dominates by dollar value—NASA Goddard Space Flight Center alone accounts for 5 awards valued at $13.7 million combined potential value. Federal customer base spans 48 distinct agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts (Margaret Mead Film Festival programming), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (collections care and access), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA disease monitoring research, concluded November 2024), and state-level offices.

Award activity has grown modestly—13 awards in FY2022 to 22 in FY2024—though recent years show volatility. The source covers 1990 through August 2026, capturing 448 total awards with combined obligated dollars of $221.7 million across $57.5 million in combined potential value, indicating substantial completion of multi-year research agreements. Twenty-four awards face completion within the next twenty-four months with combined potential value of $2.6 million, representing modest recompete exposure.

AMNH operates primarily as a prime research recipient and coordinator rather than as a subcontractor. Of 19 sub awards in the dataset, recent examples include collaboration with Harvard College on World Wide Telescope and OpenSpace integration (August 2026), work with Florida State University on Ediacaran paleontology (August 2026), and sub-recipient role under Columbia University for IODP (International Ocean Discovery Program) science training activities (July 2024). The Service Contract Inventory dataset shows minimal SCI-reportable activity—one FY2024 record capturing 0.9 federal FTEs as a named subcontractor—reflecting AMNH's positioning as a grant-funded research institution rather than a service contractor. AMNH's institutional scale spans over 170 active scientists across five research divisions, 34 million specimens and artifacts in collections, and significant infrastructure investments in computing, networking, and advanced instrumentation.