Dr Griffin (47), who was recently appointed the museum's eighth director, last night addressed more than 100 people at a museum welcome function in his honour.
The museum's Maori advisory committee chairman, Matapura Ellison, and Otago Museum Trust Board chairman Graham Crombie welcomed him.
And Otago physics department head Associate Prof Pat Langhorne announced Dr Griffin had been appointed an honorary fellow and she hoped to see him at departmental seminars.
Addressing more than 100 people, including Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull and many other dignitaries, Dr Griffin said museums existed at least partly to inspire museum visitors and change their lives.
He outlined a lively vision of the future for 2018, the year of the museum's 150th anniversary, envisaging that the museum had been extensively refurbished at that stage, and that a recently renovated Cook pub still served a good pint, but now perhaps also served as a joint outreach centre for the university and the museum.
Among his aims were to use social media to ''take our collections beyond the walls of the museum'', and to use the museum as a public forum to discuss key issues such as climate change.
He had spent the past month talking to many people about their views on the Otago Museum, and was grateful for the ''extreme kindness'' he had been shown.
Mr Crombie said Dr Griffin and other passionate museum staff were ''interesting'' people.
Among his accomplishments was the finding and naming of asteroids, including one named after Bruce Springsteen.
Mr Crombie joked there could be good museum fundraising potential for naming rights involving other asteroids Dr Griffin had found but not yet named.
