In October, the Met opens an exhibition dedicated to Dr. Bashford Dean (1867–1928), the founding curator of the museum’s Arms and Armor Department:

A zoologist by training, Dean was for a time simultaneously a full professor at Columbia University, Curator of Fishes at the American Museum of Natural History, and Curator of Arms and Armor at the Metropolitan Museum.

According to the Dictionary of Art Historians, Dean founded the department of Zoology at Columbia in 1891, and as if that’s not enough for the life of one professor/curator, there’s more:

During World War I Dean advised the army on protective armor designing a protective helmet for trench warfare and rising to major in the ordnance branch. His design for an American helmet, based on the Galiot de Genouilhac casqie, was rejected by the military…. When the United States entered World War II, the army adopted a new helmet, known as the M-1, based on Dean’s designs for the previous war.