Art Harris is past Director of the Laboratory for Environmental Biology and currently Curator of Paleobiology and Curator of Mammalogy. The Laboratory commonly is known as the LEB and consists of biological collections and the associated researcher. Dr. Harris has been responsible for computerization and maintenance of the Centennial Museum's collection databases and acts as webmaster for the Museum. He also is Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences.
Art received his B.A. (Biology), M.S. (Zoology), and Ph.D. (Vertebrate Zoology with a minor in Geochronology) degrees from the University of New Mexico, with additional coursework at the University of Arizona. He taught for 2 years at Fort Hays Kansas State College (now Fort Hays University) before coming to Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) in 1965. He has taught about 25 different courses, ranging from Systematic Botany to Biology of the Pleistocene.
Although originally trained primarily as a mammalogist, his research has been mostly in vertebrate paleontology in recent years, specializing in late Pleistocene cave faunas of the Southwest. Bioarchaeology remains an interest and he teaches an undergraduate course in that subject. His published research includes Vertebrate Pleistocene Paleoecology of the West and coauthorship of the Mammals of New Mexico. A major web publication, Pleistocene Vertebrates of New Mexico and Trans-Pecos Texas treats all of the Pleistocene vertebrates known from the region.