New Head of Collections and Conservation at the Medical Museion

Farewell to dinosaurs, space capsules, and butterflies. And welcome to medical collections.

Medical Museion is pleased to welcome Abdi Hedayat as the new Head of Collections and Conservation.

Trained as a natural history conservator, Abdi Hedayat has spent more than two decades collecting, preserving, researching, and communicating our shared natural and cultural heritage.

His experience is wide-ranging – from pinning butterflies and preserving bristle worms in alcohol, to handling massive and explosive whales, iconic dinosaur fossils, and conveying the stories of steam locomotives, space capsules, and particle accelerators. Abdi Hedayat has also been actively engaged in using public dissections as a medium of science communication.

He has contributed to projects at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, the Natural History Museum in Bergen, Naturalis in Leiden, and has worked at the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen and most recently at the Danish Museum of Science and Technology in Elsinore.

With a long-standing interest in the history of medicine in Denmark, he is excited to join the collections team at Medical Museion. Together, they will continue the work of collecting and communicating medical cultural heritage, and preserving the museum’s unique medical collections.

“Our most important task is to care for the museum’s collections – not just physically, but also professionally, historically, and ethically. It’s about preserving, understanding, and activating the collections so they continue to be meaningful for research and communication, and provoke reflection among the public,” says Abdi Hedayat.

Abdi Hedayat succeeds Ion Meyer, who retired in December 2024 after 25 years at Medical Museion.