The KU Biodiversity Institute is one of several research centers at the University of Kansas. Its 120 scientists, staff and graduate students study the species, ecosystems and cultures of the planet to understand the history and diversity of life. They model and forecast changes in biodiversity, threatened species, the spread of disease and pest species. There are 14 research related divisions of the Biodiversity Institute: archaeology, botany, biodiversity modeling and policy, ichthyology, herpetology, entomology, informatics, paleobotany, invertebrate zoology, invertebrate paleontology, mammalogy, ornithology, parasitology and vertebrate paleontology. The Biodiversity Institute also includes the KU Natural History Museum, a local and regional resource for natural history exhibits and public education programs, and the Paleontological Institute, the global hub for production of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology and other paleontological publications. Most faculty-curators at the institute have half-time appointments at the Biodiversity Institute and half-time appointments in the KU departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geology or Anthropology, or other university units. The Biodiversity Institute reports to the academic Office of Research and Graduate Studies, and its corporate side, the KU Center for Research, which administers all KU grants and contracts. The director of the Biodiversity Institute is Leonard Krishtalka, who was recently elected chair of the science committee for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, or GBIF, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark.