Longtime curator Anna Dhody resigns from the Mütter Museum

Curator Anna Dhody is used to people associating her with the Mütter Museum, where she has been the face of the macabre medical history collection that contains more than 6,600 anatomical specimens. But a few months ago, she quietly left her post to begin a new chapter — launching her own nonprofit, the Dhody Research Institute.

Dhody’s new initiative will collaborate with institutions and private collections across the U.S. to conduct scientific research on historical medical collections — like studying centuries-old samples of smallpox vaccines for insights into modern-day medicine — and promoting STEM engagement through educational videos. Not unlike the museum she curated, her Dhody Research Institute will aim to serve a broad audience — serious scientists, interested laypeople, students, and folks in-between.

“It’s for anybody who’s open to learning more about science and the history of medicine,” said Dhody, who intends to collaborate globally. “I want to make sure the content we put out is suitable for all demographics. I think that’s important. I want to make sure the content we produce is accessible, relatable, informative, and entertaining.”

Her announcement comes after nearly two years of silence following a publicly turbulent transition in Mütter leadership. The museum that once embraced a “disturbingly informative” motto abruptly shifted gears, scrubbing much of its online presence, including hundreds of educational, occasionally cheeky videos that Dhody led. Those made her a beloved figure among Mütter fans for almost 20 years.

Now she’s coming out from the storage room with big plans to continue doing the research and educational work she says is no longer welcome at the Mütter.

“I wasn’t in alignment with what leadership wanted to do, and that’s fine. When you disagree about things, you either have the option of staying put, dealing with it, and moving on, or you could leave and do something else. That’s what I decided,” said Dhody. “I’m never going to be able to fully extract myself from [the Mütter]. I’m going to have that legacy, and I’m just going to lean into it.”

A forensic anthropologist by trade, Dhody first visited the Mütter when she was 7. Before joining the Mütter in 2004, she was an osteologist at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Dhody became curator of the Mütter’s unique collection in 2007, spearheading exhibits that showcased older specimens while working with people who donated their own organs and skeletons. (Dhody herself donated a kidney stone.)

During her tenure, the Mütter expanded its audiences in-person and online, with visitorship reaching 130,000 a year and a quirky YouTube channel of some 450 videos earning more than 13 million views. Dhody was the driving creative force behind educational series like “What’s on the Curator’s Desk?” where she would explain the story and science behind a jar of skin, an enlarged gallbladder, or a curious historical medical instrument.

Dhody didn’t just stop at uncovering history: She saw the potential for the Mütter’s collection to contribute to cutting-edge research that could advance the understanding of diseases and vaccines today — including COVID-19. In 2014, Dhody and a team of scientists studied pieces of intestines from six people who died of cholera in the mid-1800s. The DNA they analyzed provided clues to how bacteria evolved into new strains of the disease.

That effort led Dhody and Mütter leadership to create a research arm of the museum, called the Mütter Research Institute. Dhody was its director, seeking out research collaborations with other scientists and institutes around the world.

» READ MORE: Donors who planned to leave their remains to the Mütter are left in limbo amid museum changes

Another Mütter Research Institute project came through sheer luck: Robert Hicks, former Mütter director who is now on the board for Dhody’s institute, unexpectedly found smallpox vaccination kits dating back to the Civil War in 2020. Dhody sent them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where scientists studied the history of that vaccine’s development to better inform the creation of the COVID-19 vaccine. Dhody also petitioned the CDC for permission to send some samples across the border to Canada’s McMaster Ancient DNA Centre, where they managed to extract DNA from the roughly 160-year-old artifacts.

“That was the first time, I believe, that this type of genetic material was successfully obtained from a nonbiological source,” said Dhody. “It was amazing that we actually got viable DNA. That happened because of this interdisciplinary research that we do.”

Over the next two years, the museum and its parent organization, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, brought in new leaders — museum director Kate Quinn and CEO Mira Irons — as it rebounded from the COVID-19 shutdown. There was a distinct shift in tone and approach, particularly around the human remains in the collection. Quinn removed nearly all of the Mütter’s YouTube channel, shut down online exhibits, and instructed staffers to delete any images of human remains from the website.

Quinn has since initiated a large-scale audit of the museum’s entire collection, including the two-year initiative “Postmortem” that has invited the public’s feedback on questions of consent and ethics on human remains at the Mütter, most of which were obtained in the 19th century, including from doctors but also through unethical means like grave robbing. Her efforts led to an uproar from Mütter fans in Philadelphia and beyond who worry the museum will be stripped of its unique character.

During much of the Mütter’s transition, Dhody was on medical leave. When she returned, things were very different. “Nobody communicated with me about anything. I was really kind of shuttled off to the sidelines,” she said. “That’s fine, that was their choice, but it made me really want to kind of be my own boss and be able to do the kind of research I wanted to do.”

Dhody says museum leadership “dissolved” the Mütter Research Institute because they were not interested in continuing that work. (Quinn disputed that the institute was dissolved, writing in an email: “Anna was the driving force behind the Institute, and with her departure its activities have been paused.”)

The former curator was also absent from town halls for the museum’s “Postmortem” project. While she agrees that some museum displays need to be reevaluated, Dhody was not part of the human remains committee that Quinn organized to lead the initiative and assess the collection. She said she was not asked to participate, but she hopes they talk to scientists who have studied the collection.

“We had no intention to exclude her from the process. On the contrary, Postmortem has not concluded, and we would welcome her participation at any time,” said Quinn.

Dhody said she’s happy to accept the invitation but is also ready to move on from the Mütter. In addition to the Dhody Research Institute, she is working on a memoir about her years at the museum and planning an informational TV series focused on death through medical, legal, economic, and cultural perspectives.

She’s excited to be back in front of the camera, too: The first video in the Dhody Research Institute’s new series “What’s That For?” showcases the private collection of an ob-gyn doctor in Cherry Hill.The collection includes a contraceptive sponge, which she’ll use to talk about a group called the Dainty Maids. In the 1950s, these women went door-to-door selling feminine hygiene products while secretly delivering contraceptives.

“I’m not afraid to have these uncomfortable conversations … It’s very important to be frank,” said Dhody. “That’s one of the great things about owning your own research institute — you can decide what you want to put out there.”

She’s brought along former Mütter staffers like videographer Jonah Stern and college fellow Marianne Hamel, who has joined the Dhody Research Institute’s board. “The DRI hopes to fill the void [left by the Mütter] in interdisciplinary research using historical medical collections and in science communication to the general public,” said Hamel. “I’m hoping that Anna’s fans from YouTube and social media will follow the DRI, because I think they’ll find what they’ve been looking for there.”

Dhody is looking forward to interviewing authors of medical histories and presenting that information, as well as opening her viewers to medical museum collections from around the world.

“It’s going to be really fun,” she said.